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THE 



LIFE AND TIMES 



Sir Walter Raleigh, 



Jioncer of luglo-lmcrican Colonisation. 



CHARLES K. TRUE, D. D., 

AUTHOR OF "elements OF LOGIC," "LIFE OF JOHN WINTHROP," ETC. 




/.* 



V 



■ , . . - -- V . 

CINCINNATI ;^^>^^ ^ 

HITCHCOCK AND WALDE^f. 

NEW YORK: NELSON & PHILLIPS. 
1877. 



■'7 



■^ < » » 



^ 



TTHE LIBRARY 
|] OF CQWGREgS 

j/WASHlNOTOir 



Entered, according to Act of Conj^ress, in tlie year 1877, by 

HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



pff 



PREFACE, 



This book is composed to find a place in 
Sunday-school libraries, to keep in memory 
the heroic men who have contributed to lay 
the foundations of Anglo-Saxon civilization 
on this Continent, in the hope that it may 
alternate with, if not substitute, some of the 
fictitious tales that make up so much of the 
reading of our young people. It is based 
upon the most recent and reliable biographies 
of Raleigh and the histories of his times. I 
take pleasure in acknowledging my indebted- 
ness to the biographies of Raleigh by Edward 
Edwards and by Mrs. M. A. Thompson, En- 
glish writers, and to J. C. Ridpath's ** History 

of the United States." 

C. K. T. 

Flushing, L. I., N, Y., 1877. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

Birth and Education, 9 



CHAPTER H. 

Raleigh enlists in the Civil Wars of France — ^The 

Huguenots. . . . • . • • ^5 

CHAPTER III. 

Discovery and Colonization of America — Raleigh's 

First Adventures, 21 

CHAPTER IV. 
Civil Wars in Ireland, 33 

CHAPTER V. 

Raleigh at the Court of Elizabeth — Essex— Lady 

Arabella Stuart — Sir Philip Sidney — Spenser, . 40 

CHAPTER VI. 

Raleigh attempts to colonize Virginia, . . -54 

5 



Contents. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Raleigh's Relation to Ireland — Potatoes introduced 
into Ireland — War with Spain — The Armada — 
Reprisals, ........ 64 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Visit to Spenser — Panama Scheme — Favors Tolera- 
tion — Udall — The Brownists — The Jesuits — Ra- 
leigh's Marriage — Disgrace at Court and Impris- 
onment, ........ 72 

CHAPTER IX. 
Expeditions to Guiana, ...... 85 

CHAPTER X. 

Naval Expedition against Cadiz — The Island's Enter- 
prise — Breach with Essex, ... . . 99 

CHAPTER XI. 

Raleigh and his Compeers at Court — Revolt and Ex- 
ecution of Essex, . , . . . .110 

CHAPTER XII. 

Raleigh Governor of Jersey — His Domestic Life — 

Member of Parliament — His Literary Associates, 119 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Death of Elizabeth — Accession of James — His Char- 
acter and Works — Raleigh's Disgrace at Court — 



Contents. 7 

PAGE. 

Charged with Conspiracy — Imprisonment in the 
Tower 128 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Trial of Raleigh and the Conspirators — Conduct 
of Sir Edward Coke — The Sentence of the Pris- 
oners, . . . . . . . • 154 

CHAPTER XV. 

Execution of the Prisoners Watson, Clarke, and 
Brooke — The King's Maneuvers in regard to the 
Fate of Raleigh, Cobham, Grey, and Markham, 184 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Death of Cecil and Prince Henry — Raleigh released 
from the Tower — Projects Another Expedition to 
Guiana, ........ 196 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Guiana Expedition, 206 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Arrested on his Journey to London — Expedients to 
escape — Committed to the Tower — Fruitless Ef- 
forts of Queen Anne in his Behalf — Brought 
before the Court of the King's Bench — Former 
Sentence renewed against him — His Execution 
and Burial, 234 



Illustrations. 



Young Essex brought to Queen Elizabeth, 

Frontispiece. 

Queen Elizabeth GIVING A Ring TO Essex, . ii6 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



LIFE 



OF 



Sir ^AAalter Raleigh, 

pionttr of ^njglo-^mtrican Colonfjatfon* 



Cl(kj)tef I. 

BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 

QIR WALTER RALEIGH was born A. D. 
^^ 1552, at the Manor Hayes, in the parish of 
East Badleigh, on the eastern coast of Devon- 
shire, a county distinguished as the birthplace of 
two other great navigators, Sir Francis Drake and 
Sir John Hawkins. It was in the reign of the 
young king, Edward VI, son of Henry VIII and 
Jane Seymour, whose death at the age of fifteen 
gave the throne to Mary, the Catholic, daughter 
of Henry VIII and Catherine. His parents were 
Protestants, as we know by the following anec- 



lo Sir Walter Raleigh. 

dotes, well worth noting, as revealing the charac- 
ter of the times : 

A few years before Walter was born a revolt 
against the government of the papists, called the 
"Rising of the West," took place. It commenced 
on Whitsunday, 1549, at the Church of Sampford 
Courtenay, about twenty miles from Hayes, and 
spread all over Devon and Cornwall. While rid- 
ing toward Exeter, Walter Raleigh, Senior, over- 
took an old woman going to the Church of Clyst 
St. Mary. He amused himself by asking her, 
*'What is the good of your beads?" and told her 
of the new laws against superstitious practices. 
She was made so angry by his banter that, when 
she got to the church, she rushed in and cried 
out, "Unless they would quit their beads and 
holy water, the gentlemen would burn their houses 
over their heads!" The Congregation thereupon 
swarmed out of the church "like a sort of 
wasps;" and a party of them overtook Raleigh, . 
and obliged him to flee into a chapel on the road- 
side, where he was protected for the time; but 
farther on he was overhauled and captured by a 



Pioneer of American Colonization. ii 

party of rioters, and imprisoned in the tower of a 
church at Saint SidwelFs, in the suburbs of Exeter. 
The rebels besieged Exeter ; but, in a bloody battle 
at Clyst Heath, Lord Grey defeated them with 
great slaughter. In the morning after the battle 
Mr. Raleigh was set at liberty by the victors. 

In the next reign the work of suppressing 

Protestantism was carried on with vigor by Queen 

Mary, and many good people were martyred for 

their religion. Among them was one uneducated 

but strong-minded and pious woman, named 

Agnes Prest, whose trial so excited the sympathies 

of young Walter's mother that she made her a 

visit of condolence in prison. The poor woman 

revealed the special cause of her imprisonment 

while repeating to Mrs. Raleigh her creed; for 

when she came to the words, '^ He ascended,'' she 

stopped and remarked upon the folly of looking 

for the body of Christ in any earthly temple ; and 

declared the papal usage of the sacrament was 

making an idol of the wafer, and not a proper 

remembrance of Christ's passion. Mrs. Raleigh 

was surprised at her intelligence, and said to 



12 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

the family that she was convinced that "God 
was with her." "I was not able to answer her — 
I who could read, and she can not!" 

We know nothing more of the mother of 
Walter, except that she was the widow of Otho 
Gilbert a man of wealth, and became the third 
wife of Mr. Raleigh. By him she became the 
mother of three children, Carew, Walter, and 
Margaret. By her first husband she had three 
sons, Humphrey, John, and Adrian Gilbert, all of 
whom attained distinction, especially the eldest. 
We shall find him, in the course of our narrative, 
the Sir Humphrey Gilbert exploring the "North- 
west Passage." 

The rustic house in which Walter was born 
still remains, with various alterations and addi- 
tions, amidst rural scenes that have scarcely 
changed since. "It is of the plainest sort of 
Tudor architecture, with three gables, heavily 
mullioned windows, a thatched roof, and some- 
what picturesque porch." It was within a pleasant 
walk of the coast, which made him conversant 
witli sailors who had visited all parts of the globe. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 13 

and it was in the neighborhood of manufactories 
established by emigrants from Flanders; and on 
every side were exhibitions of trade and enter- 
prise and thrift, the early types of that marvelous 
industry and art which has made England the 
foremost nation of the world. 

The name of the family was spelled in every 
possible way— Rale, Rawley, Rawleigh, Ralegh, 
and Raleigh. We retain the latter because it is 
so spelled in our American geographies, though 
Sir Walter's autographs show that he spelled it 
Ralegh, without the /. It is curious to observe 
how utterly erratic was the spelling of even 
learned persons of those days, having no stand- 
ard, and showing no reluctance to employ double 
letters for single, spelling the same word differ- 
ently in the same paragraph, and all such vagaries. 

All we know of Walter's early education is 
that he was entered as a commoner at Oxford 
University in Christ Church College, and also in 
Oriel College, probably for the chance of a fellow- 
ship in one or the other of the colleges. He was 
a student three years, and was distinguished for 



14 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

his attainments in philosophy and oratory ; but he 
did not remain long enough to graduate. 

At the University he made the acquaintance 
of Francis Bacon, who formed a high opinion 
of his talents. Bacon tells this story of him : 
"Whilst Raleigh was a scholar at Oxford, there 
was a cowardly fellow, who happened to be a 
very good archer; but, having been grossly in- 
sulted by another, he bemoaned himself to Raleigh, 
and asked his advice what he should do to repair 
the wrong that had been offered him. ' Why, 
challenge him,' answered Raleigh, 'to a match 
of shooting !' " Very witty, and wise too, com- 
pared with the barbarous fashion of dueling. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 15 



dlik^tef II. 

RALEIGH ENLISTS IN THE CIVIL WARS OF FRANCE— THE 
HUGUENOTS. 

IN the Autumn of 1569 he leaves college, and 
engages as a volunteer under his cousin, 
Henry Champernoun, to fight on the side of the 
Huguenots against the King of France. He was 
probably at the battle of Jarnac, and certainly in 
that of Moncontour, for in his '* History of the 
World" he extols the masterly ability of Count 
Ludovic, brother of the Prince of Orange, in con- 
ducting the retreat of the Protestant army after 
being defeated in battle, thereby saving it from 
utter demoralization and destruction: "of which," 
he records, "myself was an eye-witness, and was 
one of those that had come to thank him for it." 
These facts connect our hero with a portion 
of history that will never cease to be of tragic 
interest. 



1 6 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

The Protestants of France were named Hugue- 
nots as a name of contempt. It is derived from 
a compound German word meaning confederates. 
They were mostly Calvinists, and, at the time in 
question, were found in every part of France, 
and numbered two million. They had endured 
every sort of persecution; many had been con- 
demned by the Chambre Ardente to be burnt for 
heresy, and their estates were confiscated. At 
length, in 1560, being secretly encouraged by 
Conde, a prince of the blood royal, a conspiracy 
was formed to resist by arms the tyranny of the 
government. The plot was discovered, and cost 
the lives of about one thousand two hundred 
persons. 

On the accession of Charles IX to the throne 
of France, being advised by the queen mother, 
Catherine, he granted toleration and many privi- 
leges to the persecuted sect. This awakened the 
jealousy of the Catholics, and especially of the 
Duke of Guise, the chief minister of State. A 
civil war was imminent. A number of Hugue- 
nots, engaged in worship in a barn, were insulted 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 17 

by the servants of the Duke as he was passing 
that way, and in the melee which followed the 
Duke was wounded in the face by a stone. See- 
ing this, his attendants became furious, and killed 
a number of the Huguenots. The reports of this 
affray went abroad in an exaggerated form, and 
in a short space the whole country was in a blaze 
of civil war. 

The first battle was fought at Dreux, and the 
Huguenots were defeated, and their commander, 
Conde, was taken prisoner. 

The next year the Duke of Guise, while at 
the siege of Orleans, was stabbed by an assassin. 
On his dying bed he exhorted the queen mother, 
who had unbounded influence at court, to make 
peace with the Huguenots. She complied with 
his request, and favorable terms of pacification 
were granted; but in a few years after, the war 
broke out afresh. In the first battle, the leader 
of the Huguenots, the Constable Montmorenci, 
was killed. The next great battle was fought at 
Jarnac, March 13, 1569, and the Prince Conde 
was obliged to surrender. Being wounded, he 



1 8 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

was placed by a tree, when an officer of the 
enemy came behind liim, and in a dastardly 
manner shot him dead. 

Queen Elizabeth, who was now on the throne 
of England, did not formally engage on the side 
of the Protestants; but it had all her sympathies, 
and she winked at tlie unauthorized participa- 
tion of her subjects in the war. Men, ships, 
provisions, and money were freely contributed, 
which so offended the government of France that 
it was on the point of declaring war against 
England. 

The religious conflict went on in France, and 
finally culminated in the massacre of St, Bar- 
tholomew's Day. The Queen Mother Catherine, 
now become ferocious, conceived the diabolical 
purpose of murdering at one fell stroke all the 
hated Huguenots in the kingdom. It required 
all her art to inveigle the young king into her 
scheme; but at last he yielded. The night of 
the 24tli of August, 1572, was set for the execu- 
tion of the plot. T]ie great bell of the palace 
was rung, and the Swiss guards of the king led 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 19 

the way for the whole miHtary to enact the horrid 
scene. The Duke of Guise rushed with a band 
of soldiers to the residence of the Admiral Co- 
ligny, the aged and venerable leader of the Hu- 
' guenots, and surprised him in bed. As one of 
the assassins apj^roached him with a drawn sword, 
he said to him, ''Young man, you ought to rev- 
erence these gray hairs. But do your work; my 
life can be shortened but a little." His body was 
thrown out of the window. It was taken to 
Rome, and hung on a gibbet by the feet. In 
this manner every house where Huguenots lived 
was broken into, and its inmates were jiut to 
death, without respect to age or sect. And the 
same scenes were enacted in every province of 
the realm. Seventy thousand persons, it is reck- 
oned, perished in that dreadful night. The young 
king murdered his own peace, for he never knew 
rest to his conscience from that hour. His Prot- 
estant nurse, whose life he had spared, was with 
him at his dying hour. Hearing him groaning, 
she went to his bed, and opened the curtain, and 
asked what distressed him. "Alas, nurse!" he 



20 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

cried. "What blood! what murder ! Ah, I have 
followed wicked counsel ! O my God, forgive 
me! Have mercy upon me if thou wilt!" 

Raleigh was in France at this time, and until 
1576. How he escaped the massacre, and of 
what he was doing, we have no account. His 
own silence on the subject is accounted for by 
the fact that the English allies of the Huguenots 
had no authority from their own government for 
enlisting in the civil wars of France, and they 
fought with the assurance that, if taken prisoners, 
they were liable to be hung. The persecution of 
the Huguenots, of which w^e have a glimpse at 
this point of history, went on for a century, until 
the land was cleared of them by death and emi- 
gration. More than two millions of the best in- 
habitants of France fled to Switzerland, Germany, 
England, and America, carrying with them art, 
wealth, and the principles of the Reformation. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 21 



dlikcptei* III. 

DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION OF AMERICA — RALEIGH's 
FIRST ADVENTURES. 

/^"^OMING from the civil wars of France, we 
^"-^ trace Raleigh to his native land, planning 
with his renowned step-brother Humphrey Gilbert 
to make discoveries of the north-west passage. 

As early as A. D. 986, an Icelander named 
Herjalfson, on a voyage to Greenland, was over- 
taken by a storm, and driven to a land that was 
so different from Greenland that they knew it was 
another country. From his stories about it on his 
return it is conjectured to have been Labrador or 
Newfoundland. 

This awakened the spirit of discovery in others, 
and an expedition was fitted out under Captain 
Lief Erickson, in A. D. looi. He discovered 
and explored the coast of Labrador. Thence he 
sailed southward as far as Massachusetts, and the 



22 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

next year went on to Rhode Island, and round to 
the mouth of the Hudson, River. The same 
year, 1002, his brother Thorwald took the same 
route as far as Fall River, Massachusetts, where 
he died. In 1005, another brother, Thorstein, 
came to Massachusetts. In 1007, Thorfinn Karl- 
sefne, a noted navigator, took one hundred and 
fifty men, and made explorations along the coast 
as far as Virginia. They gave the country the 
name of Vinland. Small colonies were planted 
by Norwegian and Icelandic adventurers in New- 
foundland and Nova Scotia. But all these at- 
tempts were ephemeral, and nothing came of 
them. In after years vessels from Norway visited 
these coasts. They were supposed to be a con- 
tinuation of Greenland, and no idea of a new 
continent discovered ever came to Europe until 
after Columbus had made his discoveries. 

His idea was that, the earth being a globe, a 
passage could be made to the Indies by proceed- 
ing westward. As early as 1356, in the first 
English book ever printed. Sir John Mandeville 
expressed this conviction, derived from his own 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 23 

observation of the stars in traveling northward 
and southward. But it was reserved to Columbus 
to reduce the speculation to experiment. In the 
evening of the nth of October, 1492, after sev- 
enty days' sailing, he saw a light moving on the 
horizon which betokened land, and when the morn- 
ing dawned he heard the cry of ''land!" from 
Rodrigo Triana, and in a little while he stepped 
ashore at the Isle of San Salvador, with the flag 
of Castile in his hand, and followed by his rejoic- 
ing crew. In this voyage he discovered Concep- 
tion, Cuba, and Hayti, and having built a fort 
out of the timber of one of his little ships, the 
Santa Maria, he returned to electrify the Old 
World with the news of his success. On his 
second voyage he discovered Jamaica and Porto 
Rico, and on the third he discovered the South 
American Continent near the Orinoco River. 

In 1499 Amerigo Vespucci discovered the 
South American coast, and again in 1501 he ex- 
plored it, and published the fact that it was not 
India, but another continent. 

In 1 5 10, a Spanish colony was planted on the 



24 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Isthmus of Darieii. The governor, Vasco Nunez 
de Balboa, crossed the Isthmus, and first saw the 
Pacific Ocean, and pompously took possession of 
it in the name of the King of Spain. 

Florida was discovered in 1512 by Juan Ponce 
de Leon, who made a landing near St. Augustine. 
On a second voyage to this region he was shot by 
an arrow from the Indians, who resisted his land- 
ing, and he withdrew, to die of his wound in Cuba. 

In the year 151 7 Yucatan and the Bay of 
Campeachy were discovered by Fernandez de 
Cordova, who met the same fate at the hands of 
the natives. Two years afterward Cortez began 
the invasion and conquest of Mexico. 

In 15 1 9 Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese 
captain, set out from Seville, under the patronage 
of the King of Spain, to discover a south-west 
passage to India; and, after spending several 
months in Brazil, the next Spring he passed down 
to the straits which now bear his name, and pen- 
etrated into the Pacific. Then, proceeding west- 
ward, he reached the Ladrones, and after that 
the Philippine Islands, where he lost his life in a 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 25 

battle with the natives. The fleet went on to the 
Moluccas.. There one vessel took in a cargo of 
spices, and leaving the rest, as too much strained 
to pursue the voyage, passed round the Cape of 
Good Hope, and reached Spain in safety, with 
the announcement that the world had been cir- 
cumnavigated. 

In 1520 the coast of South Carolina was visited 
by the infamous Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, who, 
being driven by a storm, put into the St. Helena 
Sound and the Cambahee River. The natives 
came on board to trade, and while the decks were 
crowded with them he set sail, and carried them 
off and made slaves of them. One of his ships 
went to the bottom in a storm, and all on board 
perished. In a few years he returned to the 
same spot. One of his ships ran aground, when 
the Indians made an assault upon it and killed 
many of the crew, and compelled De Ayllon to 
escape as best he could. 

In 1526 Charles V granted to Pamphila de 
Narvaez the territory from Cape Sable to the 
River of Palms, and in 1528, with a force of three 



26 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

hundred men, he entered Tampa Bay and landed 
to explore the country, and took possession. But 
after incredible hardship the whole of this force 
perished, except four men, who came out of their 
wandering on the Pacific Coast, at what is now 
the village of San Miguel. 

The year 1539 saw a fleet of ten vessels, under 
Ferdinand de Soto, enter Tampa Bay, commis- 
sioned to explore the country. Our limits will 
not allow us to follow the marvelous fortunes of 
this company, as they traversed the regions east 
and west of the Mississippi as far as the borders 
of the State of Missouri. Disappointed in his 
pursuit of El Dorado, and overcome by fatigue, 
De Soto fell a prey to a malignant fever, and was 
buried in the Mississippi River. 

It was not till 1568 that the attempt to colo- 
nize Florida was renewed, and then it was for the 
diabolical purpose of dispersing a Huguenot col- 
ony that had formed a residence on the St. John's 
River. Philip II gave the command of the ex- 
pedition to Pedro Melender. Having laid the 
foundations of St. Augustine, the first town planted 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 27 

in the present territory of the United States, he 
started on his murderous enterprise, and surprised 
the colony of Protestants, and butchered them, 
men, women, and children, to the number of two 
hundred. Seven hundred seamen were in the 
neighborhood, having escaped from their wrecked 
vessels, which had gone down the river expecting 
to meet the hostile forces by the way of the sea. 
These were captured and marched to St. Augus- 
tine, and there were slaughtered without mercy. 
The leader of the Huguenot colony, Laudonniere, 
with a few men, escaped to the coast, and were 
rescued by the two vessels that had escaped the 
storm which sent the rest to their destruction. How 
mysterious the ways of Providence, that he should 
allow the elements to conspire with the wicked- 
ness of man to extinguish the light of the Refor- 
mation on these shores! It was his will that 
Protestant colonies should be planted further 
northward. 

In 1 501 a Portuguese captain named Cortereal 
explored the coast of Maine, and carried off fifty 
natives, and sold them as slaves in Europe. The 



28 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

next year he went on the same nefarious expedi- 
tion, but was never heard of afterward. 

France sent her fishermen to the Banks of 
Newfoundland in 1504; and 1524 an expedition 
was fitted out by Francis 1 to discover a north- 
west passage. John Verrazzani, a Florentine, com- 
manded a fleet of four vessels when they started, 
but three of them were disabled by a tempest, 
and he proceeded with but a solitary ship. He 
first touched the coast in the neighborhood of 
Wilmington, North Carolina; thence he passed 
along to New Jersey and to New York Harbor; 
thence to Newport and the coast of Massachu- 
setts; thence to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. 
He gave the name of New France to these coun- 
tries. In 1534 James Cartier came with two ships 
to Newfoundland, and then, seeking the north- 
west passage, he discovered the Gulf and River 
St. Lawrence. The report of this awakened the 
deepest interest in France, and he was commis- 
sioned to plant a colony in this region. He pen- 
etrated the river in boats as far as Montreal, and 
wintered there four years afterward. Cartier was 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 29 

associated with Francis of La Roque, Lord of 
Roberval, to lead another colony to the St. Law- 
rence. Finding the people uninclined to enlist, 
the Government adopted the expedient of giving 
liberty to the prisoners who would volunteer to 
embark for America. With this strange company 
they entered the St. Lawrence in 1541, and 
selected the present Quebec as the site of the 
settlement, and built a fort. But though this 
colony was re-enforced the next year with a fresh 
supply of the same sort of persons, the whole 
enterprise failed and came to naught. 

This ended French colonization for fifty years, 
as attempted by the Government. 

In 1562 the Huguenot Admiral Coligny ob- 
tained from Charles IX the privilege of sending 
forth a colony of the persecuted Protestants, 
under Captain John Ribault. They first touched 
at Florida, and then came to Port Royal, where 
they erected a fort, and gave to it the name of 
Carolina, in honor of the king. There he left 
twenty-four men; but not being able to re-enforce 
them, on account of the troubles of the times, 



30 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

they became discouraged, and constructed a vessel 
and left for France. The next attempt was made 
in the neighborhood of St. Augustine; but it was 
destroyed by Melendez. Vengeance was taken 
for this slaughter by Dominic de Gourges, who 
came with three ships and surprised three of the 
Spanish forts, and hanged the captives on trees, 
with the inscription over them, "Not Spaniards 
but murderers." 

In 1598 the Marquis de la Roche planted a 
small colony of forty released criminals on Sable 
Island, but they escaped back to France by ships 
passing the coast. 

In 1605 De Monts planted in Nova Scotia the 
first permanent French colony in North America, 
and gave the country the name of Acadia. 

In 1608 Champlain made a second voyage to 
the St. Lawrence, and settled a colony at Quebec. 
The following year he discovered the noble lake 
to which his name is given. 

Glance now at English adventurers. 

The first discovery of the real Continent of 
Nortli America was made in 1496 by John Cabot, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 31 

who, in the employ of the English Government, 
bore tlie flag of England to tlie coast of Labrador 
full fourteen months beore Columbus saw the coast 
of Guiana. He took the country to be the king- 
dom of the Cham of Tartary. By the side of the 
English flag he set up the flag of his native land, 
the Republic of* Venice ! 

In 1498 his son, Sebastian Cabot, visited the 
country discovered by his father, and explored the 
whole coast as far southward as Cape Hatteras. 

In 1576 Martin Frobisher, searching for the 
north-west passage, discovered the strait called by 
his name, and afterward also Hudson's Strait, in 
latitude 6;^° S'. The next year he returned to 
the same region, but did not dare to go so far 
north on account of the icebergs; and the year 
following he renewed the attempt, and passed into 
Hudson's Strait. 

Sir Francis Drake in 1577 passed through the 
Straits of Magellan into the Pacific Ocean, and 
ascended as far as Oregon in search of the long- 
desired passage, and gave the name of New 
Albion to all tliis coast. 



32 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

We come now to the jDart wliich our hero, 
Walter Raleigh, had in the colonization of North 
America by Englishmen. His step-brother, Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, obtained from Queen Eliza- 
beth a patent to take possession of any six hun- 
dred square miles of territory not yet occupied on 
the coast of North America. 

A large company were associated in this enter- 
prise, and ample preparations were made to put 
to sea, when the English Court interposed on ac- 
count of objections made by the King of Spain, 
who absurdly claimed the whole of America as his 
dominion by right of previous discovery and oc- 
cupation ! However, the two brothers, disregard- 
ing this injunction, set sail with two vessels; but 
they were met at sea by Spanish men-of-war, and 
after an engagement in which they suffered defeat 
with the loss of many men, they were obliged to 
put back. Five years afterward the attempt was 
renewed under better auspices. To this we shall 
return, after we have followed our hero to another 
and far different engagement in Ireland. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 33 



dlikptef IV. 

CIVIL WARS IN IRELAND. 

'T^HE Irish people, being mostly adherents of 
the Church of Rome, and of an aspiring 
and turbulent disposition, have never been con- 
tented under the rule of Protestant England. 
The entire reign of Elizabeth was marked by 
tragic scenes of rebellion, riot, and civil war. 
In 1570, Philip II instigated a plot to revolution- 
ize Ireland, and to place the natural son of Pope 
Gregory XIII on an independent throne. This 
movement was thwarted; but in a few years it 
was revived under the leadership of the Earl 
of Desmond. The insurrection took formidable 
shape in Munster. At Smerwich, in Kerry, an 
invading party of Spaniards and Italians landed 
under the command of San loseph, and con- 
structed a fort, which they called ''Del Oro." 
Walter Raleigh enlisted for the suppression 



34 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

of this rebellion, and was actively engaged, we 
know not to what extent, under the command of 
Thomas, Earl of Ormond, and Governor of 
Munster. In 1580, we find him one of a com- 
mission to try James, the brother of the Earl of 
Desmond. The case was a clear one, and the 
execution of this distinguished rebel had a great 
influence to discourage the insurrection. At Ra- 
kele an encampment was vacated by the English 
forces, and was immediately taken possession of 
by the Irish. This was anticipated by Raleigh, 
and an ambush was laid for them, and they were 
taken prisoners. One of the prisoners had a 
bundle of withes on his shoulder, and being 
asked what he was going to do witli them, he 
replied: "To hang up the English churls with!" 
"Is it so?" said Raleigh; "they shall now serve 
for an Irish kerne." And he ordered the man to 
be strangled with his own willows. He has been 
censured for this act; but he justified himself by 
necessity of striking terror into the minds of the 
rebels. 

A certain Lord Barey, in the county of Cork, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 35 

was suspected of abetting the rebellion, and Ra- 
leigh, at his own request, was ordered to surprise 
him in his castle at Barey Court. His coming 
was anticipated, and an ambush was laid for him 
at a ford near Cork. With great presence of 
mind he collected around him his little band, 
and made a dash upon the thick ranks of the troops 
opposing his march, and fought his way through 
them. In the fight, a follower named Henry 
Moyle, to whom he was attached, twice foundered 
in the bog, and was twice rescued by Raleigh at 
the hazard of his own life. He was at another 
moment struck from his horse, and stood face to 
face with twenty men, with nothing but his pis- 
tol and quarter-staff to defend himself. But he 
escaped, and so did every man in his escort. 
He lost nothing but his horse, and gained the 
reputation of a great fighter. 

It was deemed of greatest importance to de- 
stroy the garrison of Del Oro, at Smerwich, by 
which Spanish vessels were supplying the rebellion 
with all kinds of stores and munitions of war. 
The Deputy Lord Grey commanded the land 



36 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

forces in person, and Admiral Sir Wm. Winter the 
fleet sent to besiege the fort. The attack was re- 
sisted three days, when Captains Raleigh and 
Mackworth penetrated the fort, and demanded 
unconditional surrender. A white flag was held 
out; but Lord Grey would listen to nothing but 
absolute submission. "The enemy," writes the 
Deputy in his dispatches to the government, 
"begged for a surcease of arms. I definitely 
answered I would not grant it. Either pres- 
ently he must take my offer, or else return, and 
I would fall to my business. He then embraced 
my knees, simply putting himself to my mercy; 
only he prayed that for this night he might abide 
in the fort, and that in the morning all should be 
put into my hands. I asked for hostages for the 
performances. . . . Morning came; I pre- 
sented my companies in battle before the fort. 
. . . I sent straight certain gentlemen to see 
weapons and ammunition laid down. Then I 
put in certain bands, who straightway fell to exe- 
cution. There were six hundred slain. Those I 
gave life unto, I have bestowed upon the cap- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 37 

tains and gentlemen, whose service both well de- 
served." 

This cruel slaughter was disgraceful even for 
those times; but it was apologized for by the 
poet Spenser and others as a justifiable treatment 
of the foreign ''brigands," many of whom were 
criminals released from Italian prisons by the 
Pope, and sent to maintain insurrection and re- 
bellion in a distant land. 

One notable adventure of Raleigh was his 
seizure of Lord Roche at his estate in Prathy, 
about twenty miles from Cork. This nobleman 
was suspected of secretly aiding the rebellion, 
and Raleigh deemed it important to take this 
prop from the rebels, and offered to undertake 
his capture, and bring him and his fcimily to 
Cork. Some of the rebels got wind of this, and 
a force of eight hundred men, under Fitz-Ed- 
monds, were thrown in Raleigh's path; but he 
was too quick for them, and by a night's march 
got by the place for the ambuscade before they 
had reached it. At Prathy he found five hundred 
men in arms awaiting him; but he managed with 



38 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

his small escort to amuse them^ while he, with a 
handful of men, made his way to the castle, fol- 
lowed by another small band. Arrived at the 
gates of the castle, the guards objected to his 
entrance with more than two attendants; but 
Raleigh managed deftly to get his six soldiers 
inside, and the others coming up had the same 
success. Lord Roche, finding an armed force 
within his gates, made the best of the circum- 
stances; protested his loyalty to the queen, and 
ordered a table to be spread for the entertain- 
ment of his unexpected guests ! Raleigh lost no 
time in making known his purpose to take him 
away to Cork and exhibited the warrant for his 
arrest. Nothing could be done but for him and 
his family to get ready for a night journey to 
Cork. This was accomplished over unfrequented 
routes, at considerable peril, and with the loss 
of one soldier's life, who fell from the rocks, and 
the wounding by falls of several others. They 
avoided, however, the ambuscades on the direct 
road, and at dawn Raleigh presented his prison- 
ers to Lord Ormond. Upon examination, Lord 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 39 

Roche was honorably acquitted, and was never 
after suspected of compHcity with the rebellion. 
Indeed, he took an active part in support of the 
queen's authority, and three of his sons fell in 
battle fighting for the government. 

Upon the recall of Ormond as Deputy, a joint 
commission was given to Raleigh and two other 
gentlemen to act as governors of Ireland. He 
established his headquarters at Cork. In furious 
conflicts with rebel forces he displayed much 
skill and bravery. At Clove he had a horse shot 
under him, and would have lost his life but for 
the attachment and bravery of one of his follow- 
ers, Nicholas Wright. In 1582 he was relieved 
from his command, and returned to England, 
having the satisfaction of seeing the rebellion 
quelled. 



40 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



RALEIGH AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH — ESSEX — LADY 
ARABELLA STUART — SIR PHILIP SIDNEY— SPENSER. 

O OON after Raleigh's appearance at Court, a 
^^ question concerning the management of 
affairs in Ireland by Lord Grey was argued before 
the Council Board, and Raleigh, who took ground 
against the Earl, was heard by the Council in the 
presence of the queen. His penetrating, piquant, 
and splendid delivery won her admiration, and 
from this time, Sir Robert Naunton remarks, "she 
took him for a kind of oracle," and loved to hear 
him debate any case he might have occasion to 
present to her. On his part, he was bent on 
securing the personal affection of Elizabeth. It 
is related that he met her one day on the marshy 
shore at Greenwich, and, to save her- from wet- 
ting her feet, threw down his gorgeous velvet 
cloak for a carpet. He addressed to her some 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 41 

adulatory poetry ; and on a window of the palace, 
where it was sure to meet her eye, he scratched, 
with a diamond ring : 

**Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall." 

Seeing it, she wrote under it: 

'*If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all." 

Elizabeth was about forty years of age, ten 
years the senior of Raleigh. She could not, for 
state reasons, allow her affections to be engrossed 
by any of her admirers, but was nevertheless sus- 
ceptible of the romantic sentiment of love. Nor 
could Raleigh have aspired to any thing more — 
but so much he meant to have. He was well 
calculated to interest any lady. To his fame as a 
soldier and scholar he added the charm of a 
countenance expressive of intelligence and reso- 
lution, a tall and well-proportioned form, manners 
graceful in the extreme, and a copious and ready 
wit in conversation. He prided himself on his 
costly and elegant dress, after the showy fashion 
of the day. In one of several portraits extant, 
his array is a white satin pinked vest with close 



42 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

sleeves, a brown doublet, flowered and embroi- 
dered widi pearls, a pearl -embroidered belt, a 
dagger with a jeweled pommel, a black feather in 
his hat, contrasted with a ruby and pearl drop, 
white satin trunk hose, and buff-colored shoes, 
tied with white ribbons. His silver armor was 
preserved in the Tower, as a curiosity. On one 
occasion his shoes were adorned with jewels 
computed to be worth upward of six thousand 
six hundred gold pieces ! Such a display would 
excite disgust in this day; but it passed for good 
taste in the court of the queen. She too was 
fond of rich and showy attire. In person she was 
described by Sir Robert Naunton as "tall, of hair 
and complexion fair; and therewithal well fa- 
vored, but high-nosed; of limbs and features 
neat; of a stately and majestic comportment." 
She was specially proud of her delicate hands. 
' ' She pulled off her gloves more than a hundred 
times," said a contemporary of an audience he 
had with her, "to display her hands, which were 
indeed very beautiful and very white." 

Notwithstanding her serious attention to public 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 43 

business, Elizabeth was fond of amusements, and 
many were the pageants, plays, masques, and 
tournaments which were exhibited in her court, 
and marked her costly visits to the seats of her 
favorite noblemen. In all these pastimes Raleigh 
bore his part, and every day ingratiated himself 
in the affections of the queen, as the celebrated 
Leicester had done at an early period of her life. 
This favoritism was a matter of public gossip, and 
was severely criticised. A foreign embassador, 
writing home, calls her Cleopatra; and even a 
popular actor, Taylor, ventured to point to 
Raleigh while repeating in the part he was acting 
the words, ''See how the knave commands the 
queen!" The queen resented it, and banished 
him from the court. Spenser confessed to Raleigh 
that he meant him and Elizabeth in the Timias 
and Belphoebe of the ''Faerie Queene." 

A letter Avritten to Sir Robert Cecil, when 
Raleigh was by the queen's order a prisoner in 
the Tower, as a punishment for his intrigue and 
marriage with Elizabeth Throckmorton, displays 
only the courtly style of adulation, rather than 



44 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

real affection: "My heart was never broken till 
that day that I hear tlie queen goes away so far 
off, whom I have followed so many years with so 
great love and desire in so many journeys, and 
am now left behind here in a dark prison all 
alone. While she was yet near at hand, that I 
might hear of her once in two or three days, my 
sorrows were the less; but even now my heart is 
cast into the depths of all misery. I, that was 
wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunt- 
ing like Diana, walking like Venus, tlie gentle 
wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks 
like a nymph. Sometimes setting in the shade 
like a goddess; sometimes singing like an angel; 
sometimes playing like Orpheus. Behold the sor- 
rows of this world !" It is clear enough that 
Elizabeth's heart was more touched than Ra- 
leigh's, and that it was her jealous, disappointed 
love which punished him so severely. 

But we anticipate our story. At present Ra- 
leigh is in high favor, and his influence is sought 
even by distinguished noblemen. He is appointed 
lord Warden of Stannaries (that is, tin mines), 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 45 

lieutenant of the county of Cornwall, vice-admiral 
of Cornwall and Devon, and finally captain of the 
Queen's Guard, a troop chiefly distinguished by 
personal figure and splendid uniform. 

He was sent in the suite of the Earl of Leicester 
to Antwerp to honor the inauguration of Francis 
of Valois. He obtained grants of license to 
export broadcloths, and the "farm of wines," 
that is, authority to grant licenses to traders, and 
to regulate prices. This, however, did not on 
the whole prove so very profitable to him, while 
it involved him in some lawsuits, and especially 
in a disagreeable controversy with the University 
of Cambridge, which claimed this privilege within 
its own precincts. The greatest gift of the queen 
to her favorite was the estates of Anthon Babing- 
ton, who, in 1586, was convicted of conspiring to 
assassinate her. This man was the head of an 
ancient family in Northumberland, and had large 
possessions there and in Derbyshire. He was 
educated by the Jesuits, and led a wild and dis- 
sipated life. He was taught by his priest, one 
Ballard, tliat it would be no crime to kill an ex- 



46 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

communicated princess, but doing God service. 
The motive was to make room for Mary, Queen 
of Scots, who was the next heir to the throne, 
and a Roman CathoHc. During his confinement 
in prison he made an overture through friends, or 
arranged to do it, to get Raleigh to intercede for 
him with the queen, and offered to pay him a thou- 
sand pounds if he could procure his pardon. But 
there is no evidence that Raleigh gave the least 
heed to his solicitation even if it reached him. 
The queen's grant not only made Raleigh rich 
in lands and manors and tenements, forfeited to 
the crown with all the rents, profits, and revenues 
thereof, but no acknowledgment and no fee was 
required of him in receiving the great seal to his 
grant. 

About this time there came a rival in the favor 
of the queen in the person of Robert Devereux, 
the young Earl of Essex. He was that smart 
boy, who, when eleven years of age, turned away 
from the queen when she offered to kiss him. And 
he was now not even twenty years of age, but 
ripe beyond his years, and possessed of very many 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 47 

graces and accomplishments. He was put upon 
this career, it has been said, by the Earl of Leices- 
ter, Elizabeth's old favorite, out of jealousy of 
the growing favoritism of Raleigh. Any how, 
the queen took this young and handsome noble- 
man at once to her good graces, and he became 
very intimate with her. •" When she is abroad," 
said a spectator of court life, "nobody is near 
her but my Lord of Essex ; and at night my Lord 
is at cards, or one game or another with her till 
the birds sing in the morning." 

Very soon he became arrogant, and resented 
the partiality of the -queen for the splendid cap- 
tain of her guards. He went so far as to write 
to a friend that he said to her, ''I was loth to be 
near her, when I knew my affections so much 
thrown down, and such a wretch as Raleigh 
highly esteemed of her!" Fine language, if in- 
deed he ever said it, to a queen by an upstart of 
twenty years of age ! 

Another person, the Lady Arabella Stuart, 
whose tragic fate resembles so much that of 
Raleigh, was about this time introduced to him. 



48 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

She was the granddaughter of Henry VII, and 
cousin of James I, and so after him, if he had 
no children, she would be heir to the throne of 
England. A plot of some nobles, abetted by the 
Pope, who imagined she was inclined to Roman- 
ism, to set aside James in her favor, was the 
cause of her ruin, though she was wholly innocent 
of the affair. She was now but eleven years of 
age, very beautiful and accomplished, and it was 
whispered in Raleigh's ear that it was a pity she 
was not older, to which he replied, "It would 
be a very happy thing." Edward Edwards men- 
tions this piece of gossip, and adds, ''When the 
same names were brought together on the latest 
occasion of all, Arabella lay beneath her shroud 
in the prison, which to her had but shortened 
life, and embittered while degrading it. Raleigh 
was beneath the same gloomy roof, and above 
his head the fatal clouds were beginning to gather. 
But in his case a long imprisonment had given 
birth to an immortal book. Save for the twelve 
years in the tower, English literature would have 
lacked one of its glories." But we shall come 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 49 

to that fall soon enough; at present life was wear- 
ing all the bright hues of joy and promise. 

Among the favorites of Elizabeth should be 
mentioned Sir Philip Sidney, especially as he 
was a friend of Raleigh, and in literary genius 
and knightly valor much resembled him. He 
was born in 1554, the son of Sir Henry Sidney, 
an officer in government of Queen Mary. He 
was educated at the universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge, and after his graduation traveled sev- 
eral years on the continent. Elizabeth, on his 
return home, took him mto her service, and sent 
him on an embassy to Germany. His sensitive 
nature was so ruffled by a quarrel with the Earl 
of Oxford, that he abruptly left the court, and 
retired to the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, who 
had married his sister. There he employed him- 
self in the completion of a romance, which he 
entitled, in honor of his sister, "The Countess 
of Pembroke's Arcadia" — a work which for the 
time was a superior model of English prose, and 
contributed to fix the English tongue. He medi- 
tated an expedition with Sir Francis Drake against 

4 



50 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

the Spanish settlements in America, but was per- 
emptorily forbidden by the queen to engage in it. 
In 1585, he was mentioned as a candidate for the 
crown of Poland; but this, too, Elizabeth objected 
to, not wishing, she said, "to lose the jewel of 
the times." He was subsequently made governor 
of Flushing, a town in the Netherlands, ceded to 
the English for services against the Spaniards. 
As general of the horse he joined his uncle, the 
Earl of Leicester, who commanded the army of 
the English assisting the Dutch against Philip of 
Spain. In 1586 he achieved the capture of the 
town of Oxel as captain of a detachment of En- 
glish troops. The same year, in a skirmish with 
the enemy at Zutphen, he received a wound in 
the thigh which proved mortal. As he lay upon 
the field, a cup of water was brought to him ; 
and as he was putting it to his lips, a wounded 
soldier was carried by who looked so wistfully to 
the cup that Sir Philip ordered his attendants to 
give it to him, saying to the soldier, "Thy neces- 
sity is greater than mine.'*' His death spread 
gloom over the court of England, and Raleigh lost 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 51 

a friend whose loss could not be made up to him. 
He was but thirty-two years of age at his death. 
His other writings extant are tlie "Defense of 
Poesy," "Astrophel and Stella," and ''Songs and 
Sonnets." 

The best of his sonnets, as I think, is the 
following : 

"O happy Thames, that didst my Stella bear! 

I saw thee, with full many a smiling line 
Upon thy cheerful face, joy's livery wear, 

While these fair planets on thy stream did shine. 
The boat for joy could not to dance forbear. 

While wanton winds, with beauties so divine 
Ravished, slaid not, till in her golden hair 

They did themselves, O sweetest prison, twine. 
And fain those ^ol's youth there would their stay 

Have made ; but forced by nature still to fly. 
First did with puffing kiss those locks display, 

She, so dishevel'd, blushed. From window I, 
With sight thereof, cried out, oh fair disgrace! 
Let honor's self to thee grant highest place." 

Another literary friend of Raleigh was Edmund 
Spenser, the first great poet of England after 
Chaucer. He was born in London, at East 
Smithfield, near the Tower, in 1553, and gradu- 
ated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1569. He 



52 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

was employed in the capacity of secretary by 
Lord Grey, wliile Lord Deputy to Ireland; and 
in 1586 be received from the queen a grant of a 
portion of the Earl of Desmond's forfeited lands. 
The condition was that he should reside in Ire- 
land, and accordingly he occupied the old Kilcol- 
man Castle. Here he wrote the "Faerie Queene," 
which, more than any thing else, has immortalized 
him. The peculiar stanza employed was his own 
invention, and now bears his name. Lord Byron 
has employed it in his " Childe Harold," with the 
greatest success. Sir Walter Raleigh visited him 
when he had finished three cantos, and the 
friends spent a delightful hour together in reading 
and commenting upon the poem. He has cele- 
brated both Elizabeth and Raleigh in his verse, 
giving the latter the style of "Shepherd of the 
Ocean." In his forty-first year he married the 
lady whom he celebrates under the name of 
Elizabeth in that magnificent epithalamium, which 
is deemed the greatest of the kind i-n English 
verse. The rebellion of Tyrone, in 1598, drove 
Spenser and his family from Kilcolman, and so 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 53 

hurried was their flight that they left behind 
their infant child. The mob set fire to the house, 
and the babe perished in the flames, with all the 
contents of the house which they did not choose 
to pillage. The heart-broken poet escaped to 
London, where, overcome with misfortune, he 
soon after died. He was buried in the tomb of 
Chaucer, in Westminster Abbey. His wife found 
refuge with her two sons, living in another part 
of Ireland ; and after the rebeUion was suppressed 
she returned to Kilcolman. In 1641 another out- 
break sent a second wave of desolation over the 
place. She fled, to return no more; and the 
place fell out of the possession of the family until 
Cromwell the Protector restored it. In now be- 
longs to the Earl of Clancarty. 

It was the influence of Raleigh that induced 
Spenser to bring out the three cantos of the 
*' Faerie Queene" before more were written. These 
were published in 1596, but only fragments have 
been found of what Avould have been the con- 
cluding six, had the troubles of the times not 
driven him from home and ended his life. 



54 *SiR Walter Raleigh. 



dl^kptei^ YI. 

RALEIGH ATTEMPTS TO COLONIZE VIRGINIA. 

THE bad success of the first effort for colo- 
nizing America of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 
with whom Raleigh was a partner, in 1579, as 
related in Chapter IV, did not discourage tlie 
devoted brothers. Raleigh exerted all his influ- 
ence with Queen Elizabeth in favor of renewing 
the enterprise. In 1583 five ships were fitted out 
at great expense, and set sail for Plymouth on the 
nth of June. The queen told Sir Humphrey 
that " she wished as great good-hap and safety to 
his ship as if herself were there in person." She 
gave him as a present ''an anchor guided by a 
lady," which he was to wear on his breast, and 
asked him to leave with her liis picture as a keep- 
sake. Raleigh did not himself embark, but con- 
tributed two thousand pounds to equip one of the 
ships, which, after him, was named The Ariz Raleigh. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 55 

It unfortunately happened to this ship that an 
infection broke out among the crew soon after she 
left port, and she was obliged to put back. Sir 
Humphrey saw them putting back, and supposed 
that they had treacherously deserted him, but he 
went directly on with tlie remaining four ships. 
They discovered Newfoundland early in August, 
and Sir Humpln-ey took ceremonial possession of 
it in the name of his sovereign. The insane pas- 
sion for gold and silver and precious stones 
reigned in the breasts of all the early discoverers 
of America; and in this instance the sailors, hav- 
ing discovered mica in a hill, took it for silver, 
and went to work to load one of tlie ships with 
the precious metal, regardless of the order of the 
commander and of the purpose of the expedition 
to settle the country. One of the ships was con- 
demned as useless, and with the three that were 
left Sir Humphrey at length got away, and pro- 
ceeded down the coast. Off Massachusetts a 
storm overtook them, and the ship laden witli 
supposed treasure went down, carrying with her 
a hundred men. This determined Gilbert to steer 



56 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

for home. But he was destined never to reach 
England. A storm soon ingulfed the vessel in 
which he sailed. At midnight the two ships 
came within hailing distance, and Gilbert shouted 
to his comrades in peril, "Be of good cheer, my 
friends; we are as near to heaven by sea as by 
land!" The other ship brought to England the 
sad tale of the shipwreck of her consort and the 
loss of all on board. 

Six months after this the undaunted Raleigh 
obtained a new charter, by which he was author- 
ized to take possession of and colonize such 
countries as were not already possessed by other 
Christian States; and to repel all intruders who 
might approach nearer than two hundred leagues, 
and to exercise all civil and military rule in this 
settlement for six years thereafter, provided the 
laws enacted be conformed as near as may be to 
the statutes of England, and ''not oppose the 
Christian faith." 

Under this charter Raleigh dispatched two 
ships, commanded by Philip Amidas and Arthur 
Barlow. In July they came in sight of the coast 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 57 

of North Carolina, and landed at the island of 
Roanoke. "There lieth," says William Strachey, 
an historian of those times, "along the coast a 
tract of islands two hundred miles in length, and 
between the islands two or three entrances. 
When they were entered between them, there 
appeared an inclosed sea, in which were one 
hundred islands of diverse bigness, whereof 
Roanoke is fifteen or sixteen miles long, a pleas- 
ant and fertile ground, full of cedars, sassafras, 
currants, flax, vines, deer, conies, hares, and the 
tree that beareth the rind of black cinnamon.'* 
There the company were entertained by the 
Indian queen, and welcomed to the country. 

But these captains had no genius for coloniza- 
tion, and after exploring the coasts of Pamlico and 
Albemarle Sounds, and getting such an impression 
of the country as would make a basis for glowing 
rhetoric on their return to England, they came 
away, bringing with them some specimens of 
skins, "a bracelet of pearls as big as pears," and 
two of the native Indians. 

Raleigh seems not to have resented this 



58 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

fruitless expedition. He was delighted with the 
account of the beauty and richness of the coun- 
try, and sought and obtained permission to honor 
the queen by naming it "Virginia." On anew 
seal of his arms he had his name engraved in 
Latin as "Lord and Governor of Virginia." 

The idea now of colonization took possession 
of the popular mind in lieu of the impractical 
notion of finding a north-west passage, and Ra- 
leigh got the Parliament, in December of that year, 
1584, to enlarge his charter. And now large num- 
bers, including young men from the nobility, enlist 
in a new expedition. Sir Ralph Lane is engaged 
by Raleigh to be governor of the colony, and 
Sir Richard Greenville to command the fleet con- 
sisting of seven ships. There were no less than- 
one hundred householders on board, and such 
notable men as Thomas Hariot, the mathema- 
tician, and Captain Thomas Cavendish were as- 
sociated with them ; but no females were in the 
company — a fatal lack in view of permanent col- 
onization. When near the coast off Cape Fear, 
they encountered a fearful storm ; but they weath- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 59 

ered it, and arrived safely at Roanoke on the 
26tli of June. With a portion of the emigrants, 
consisting of one hundred and ten persons, Lane 
commenced the work of forming a settlement, 
while Greenville made explorations along the 
coast, in the course of which, in the piratical 
spirit of the times, he seized a Spanish treasure 
ship. But he made no attempts to form another 
settlement, and returned to England with his 
prize. 

Lane very soon came into collision with the 
natives of the land. He set fire to an Indian 
town on the island simply to retaliate an act of 
theft committed by some of the inhabitants, and 
by such measures set tlie whole native population 
against him. Soon after he was lured into the 
depths of the mainland by reports of gold mines, 
and came near being captured by the Lidians. 
He retaliated by entrapping the Indian king Win- 
gina and other chiefs, and putting them to death. 
Of course, the country was roused against them, 
and he got ready to quit the country. Sir Francis 
Drake in this emergency happened to be passing 



6o Sir Walter Raleigh. 

by on his return from the Pacific coast, and took 
the colonists back to England, where they arrived 
July 27, 1586. Soon after a supply ship arrived 
from Sir Walter Raleigh, and two weeks after 
that Sir Richard Greenville himself arrived with 
a fleet of three ships, laden with stores of all 
kinds, and re-enforcements of men. He was sur- 
prised and amazed to find the colony gone ; but 
he left fifteen men to still hold possession, and re- 
turned to England. Was ever a scheme of col- 
onization so foolishly managed? The settlement 
had not lasted two years. 

The next year, 1587, saw a new experiment 
commenced by Raleigh under better auspices. 
Captain John White was appointed governor, with 
a charter of municipal government, and he em- 
barked with one hundred and fifty householders. 
The government was styled, "The Governor and 
Assistants of the City of Raleigh in Virginia." 
They avoided the dangers of Capes Fear and 
Hatteras, and landed at Roanoke in the month 
of July. To their sorrow, they found no traces 
of the fifteen colonists; but they commenced their 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 6i 

foundations of the new city at the north end of 
the same island. 

The old story of war with the natives has to 
be told, and the usual results followed. Raleigh 
counseled a pacific policy, and he adopted an 
expedient, which, whatever effect it might have 
on aristocratic Englishmen, was powerless for 
good in Virginia. He got Manito, an Indian 
chief, made a peer of the realm, with the title of 
Lord of Roanoke. The colonists now began to 
begin to be in dread of want, and they\n-ged 
Governor White to return to England for supplies. 
He left them, and they perished at the hands of 
the aborigines, it is supposed, for no account has 
ever been given of their fate. It is worth men- 
tioning that the first child of English parents born 
in America was born August i8th. She was 
named Virginia Dale. This was the end of Sir 
Walter's costly efforts to colonize Virginia. He 
strove to reach the colony by two supply ships- 
but they were seized by Spanish cruisers, and 
when White returned in 1590, under the direction 
of a London society, to whom Raleigh sold out 



62 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

his proprietary rights, he found nothing but deso- 
lation where the city of Raleigh was to have been 
founded. The expense to Sir WaUer of all these 
nine expeditions was not less, it is reckoned, than 
two hundred thousand dollars. But his name is 
worthy of everlasting honor in America, and the 
city of Raleigh, in North Carolina, though on 
another site, will ever be his monument to pos- 
terity of his unparalleled devotion to American 
colonization. 

Elizabeth was now so involved in the war with 
Spain that she could give no aid to colonization. 
The terrible Armada was coming, and the fate of 
the nation was at stake. Nothing more was done 
for Virginia during her reign. It remained for 
Captain John Smith to take up the work where 
Raleigh left it, and after great hardships and re- 
verses to get the first plant of English civilization 
to take root at Jamestown, on James River, named 
in honor of Elizabeth's successor on the throne of 
England. The words of Raleigh came true, "I 
shall yet live to see it an English nation." 

One reminiscence of this ill-fated colony is the 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 6^ 

tobacco plant. When Lane returned with Drake 
he brought specimens of it, and contributed to in- 
troduce the custom of using it in England, as it 
was already more or less prevalent in Spain, 
Portugal and France. Sir Walter Raleigh was 
fond of it, and one day he was amusing himself 
with '' drinking" the smoke (that is, taking it 
into his mouth, and letting it come out of his 
nose and ears), when his servant came in, and, 
thinking that his master was on fire, he seized a 
bucket of water, and dashed it on liis head. 
Elizabeth did not favor its use by her example. 
One day she made a wager with Raleigh that he 
could not ascertain the weight of the smoke. He 
won the bet by weighing first the tobacco used, 
and then weighing the ashes. The difference was 
the answer. The queen laughed, and paid the 
wager, saying ''she had heard of those who 
turned their gold into smoke, but had never be- 
fore seen the man who could turn smoke into 
gold." 



64 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



di^kptef yii. 

RALEIGH'S RELATION TO IRELAND — POTATOES INTRODUCED 

INTO IRELAND — WAR WITH SPAIN — THE 

ARMADA — REPRISALS. 

IF tobacco was a damage to the nation, an- 
otlier plant, the gift of Virginia, was one of 
the greatest blessings. It was on his estate in 
Munster Sir Walter was the first to plant the po- 
tato in Ireland. We have seen how, after the 
suppression of the Irish rebellion, large landed 
estates were bestowed upon Raleigh. To all the 
concessions tlie crown attached the requisition 
that the owner should re-people the estates with 
loyal people from England. He went to work 
with zeal, and from Devonshire and Somerset- 
shire brought industrious tenants, and soon gained 
the reputation of having the best ordered and 
best cultivated lands in Ireland. But property 
obtained by confiscation was destined to bring 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 65 

trouble, and he had his full share. It would be 
tedious to detail these troubles; suffice it to say 
that he grew weary of them, and finally sold out 
nearly all his interests to Richard Boyle, after- 
ward. Earl of Cork. There remained to him only 
one castle, which for her jointure was occupied 
by the old Countess of Desmond. This lady lived 
to be an hundred and forty years of age, and 
saw nine successive reigns, from Edward IV to 
James I. 

Raleigh was severe in his views of policy in 
the government of the Irish. He believed in 
showing no quarter to rebels. It is related that 
a Captain Leigh killed a noted insurgent named 
Feogh Machugli, in fair fight, and cut off his 
head, and sent it as a present to the queen. It 
was sent back again, by the same messenger, to 
be thrown among the carcasses of other rebels ; 
and tlie error was pardoned in view of the intent. 
Raleigh advised that the court should not deal 
harshly with such cases. The rebels deserved to 
have a price put upon their heads, seeing they 

''sought the lives of anointed princes." 

5 



66 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

At this time, 1587, Drake was upon the sea, 
destroying the commerce of Spain. More than 
one hundred vessels of all kinds were sunk by 
him in a single year. He wrote to Lord Bur- 
leigh that "there never was heard of or known 
so great preparations as the King of Spain hath 
and daily maketh ready for the invasion of Eng- 
land." Pope Sextus V had formed a powerful 
league for the suppression of heresy, and the 
chief in this conspiracy was Philip of Spain. He 
had a large army in the Netherlands under the 
greatest captain of the age, and he was preparing 
the greatest fleet that ever before was known for 
the invasion of England. The queen was fully 
apprised of her danger, and put forth all her 
masculine energies to arm the nation for defense, 
by land forces and fortifications and by ships of 
war. Raleigh took an active part in these prepa- 
rations. As governor of Devon and Cornwall, he 
organized the militia, strengthened the fortifica- 
tions of the Isle of Portland, and contributed 
largely to the arming of ships, which he regarded 
as the best defense that could be made. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 67 

The commander of the EngUsh fleet was Lord 
Howard, of Eppingham, who, though a Roman 
Catholic, had tlie confidence of the whole nation 
as a truly loyal man and an able admiral, de- 
scended from a line of naval heroes. A spy at 
Madrid gave notice of the sailing of the Armada 
in the month of May, 1588. This took the min- 
istry by surprise, for they had sent word to 
Howard to return to harbor with his ships, to 
save expense. He was of a different opinion, 
and protested that he would rather have the ex- 
pense of the ships charged to his account. Soon 
the report of the approach of the formidable fleet 
off the coast showed the correctness of his infor- 
mation and judgment. It consisted of a hundred 
and forty sail of all kinds, from galleys to the 
largest frames that ever floated, carrying in all 
twenty-six hundred and fifty guns, eight thousand 
sailors, twenty thousand soldiers, and two thou- 
sand volunteers of distinguished rank. 

As they entered the British Channel, Howard 
went out to engage them with only six ships, but 
was soon joined by others, to the num])er of 



68 Sir Walter Ralkigh. 

thirty. The object of the Spaniards was to reach 
Calais to make communication with the Duke of 
Parma, and to take aboard his army, and cross 
over to the EngHsh coast and effect a landing. 
They were pursued and annoyed by the fast- 
sailing English ships, and lost their principal sliip 
and many 'galleons. In the night, after coming 
to anchor, eight lire -ships were sent amongst 
them, which so frightened them that they weiglied 
anchor and moved off. In their disorder they 
were furiously assailed by the English ships, and 
numbers of them sunk or captured. At length 
the Spanish commander signaled orders to return 
by the way of the North Sea. So poorly were 
the English ships supplied with ammunition, that 
now they felt that they were unable to complete 
the victory by further pursuit. At this juncture a 
terrible storm arose, and the flying ships were 
wrecked at sea, or driven upon the coasts of 
Scotland and Ireland and Norway, and not half 
of tlie "Invincible Armada" escaped to tell the 
fate of the expedition. 

Sir Walter did not get ready to join the English 



Pioneer of American Colonization, 69 

fleet until the second day of tlie engagement, but 
he was one of the last to give up the pursuit and 
leave to nature the finishing of the terrible retri- 
bution on the enemy. 

The thousands that were wrecked on the coast 
of Scotland and Ireland were taken captive, and 
sent to England to await the judgment of the 
queen. Magnanimously she refused to order them 
to be put to death, and sent them home to Spain, 
to tell the tragic story in the ears of their coun- 
trymen. 

In token of the Divine Providence which had 
so signally defeated the diabolical purpose of the 
Spaniards, Queen Elizabeth had medals struck 
with the molto, '■'■ Afflavit Deiis et dissipantur.''^ 
(God breathed on them, and they are scattered.) 

Edward Edwards relates that Lord Burleigh 
received a letter from Rome stating that Cardinal 
Allen was overheard saying that the King of Spain 
had given ''great charge to the Duke of Modena, 
and to all the captains, that they should in no 
wise harm the person of the queen ; but should 
as speedily as might be give order for the con- 



70 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

veyance of her person to Rome, to the purpose 
that His Holiness the Pope should dispose thereof 
in such sort as it should please him !" So man 
proposes, but how differently God disposes ! 

Had the invasion of England succeeded, the 
history of Europe and America would have been 
far otherwise than we now read, and this country 
would be a Spanish colony. 

The defeat of the Armada left the English 
cruisers at liberty to rove the seas, and to make 
reprisals on Spanish commerce. Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh had three ships, the Crown, the Garla?td, 
and the Revenge, and did much damage to the 
enemy; and not always, it is to be feared, with 
such regard to the rights of neutrals as is re- 
quired by international law. "They are Span- 
iards in disguise," was his answer to a complaint 
of this kind, made against one of his captains for 
seizing a ship flying Dutch colors. 

Sir Walter took part also in the expedition 
commanded by Drake and Norris, to aid Don 
Antonio, King of Portugal, to recover his crown, 
usurped by Philip II. This enterprise failed; 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 71 

but they succeeded in making a prize of a large 
fleet of sixty ships, laden with supplies for an- 
other Armada which was to be fitted out against 
England. 



72 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



dl|kptef VIII. 

VISIT TO SPENSER— PANAMA SCHEME — FAVORS TOLERA- 
TION — UDALL — THE BROWNISTS — THE JESUITS — RA- 
LEIGH'S MARRIAGE — DISGRACE AT COURT AND IM- 
PRISONMENT. 

TF^OR some unexplained cause, Raleigh about 
^ this time lost the favor of Elizabeth, and 
took occasion to visit Ireland, and to spend some 
time with his friend, the poet Spenser. 

On his return to court, he took advantage of a 
temporary suspension of hostilities with Spain to 
plan a scheme for divesting that nation of some 
of her American dominions by the conquest of 
Panama and other regions of America. For this 
purpose he fitted out, at great expense, thirteen 
vessels. The queen added two ships of war, and 
made Raleigh admiral of the expedition. 

He was vexatiously delayed by contrary winds 
months after preparations were made; and, to 
crown all, when he had fairly got started he was 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 73 

overtaken by an order from the queen to resign 
the command to Sir Martin Frobisher, and to re- 
turn to the court. What was precisely the queen's 
motive for this is not known, but it was pretended 
that she wished his services at court. 

Sir Walter made no haste to obey, but kept 
on with his fleet until he had made such investi- 
gations of the designs and warlike preparations 
of Spain as to induce him to change the whole 
plan of his adventure. He gave up his designs 
on Panama, and divided his fleet into two parts, 
one for cruising after the rich India caracks that 
were expected, and the other to hover about the 
coast of Spain, to engage the attention of the 
Spanish home fleet, and keep them from coming 
out to protect the caracks. 

After taking a valuable prize of another sort, 
they fell in with the caracks, and one of, them, 
the Madre de Vios, was captured. Another was 
set on fire by her own crew. The prize was 
taken to Dartmouth. It proved to be possessed 
of wealth beyond all calculation, and produced 
the greatest excitement all over England, every 



74 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

body trying to make capital out of it. The queen 
managed to get the lion's share, while Raleigh 
had less than his due. In Spain the utmost in- 
dignation was felt at an order now given by 
Philip II to all his adherents to blow up any ship 
rather than to let it be taken by the English 
cruisers. 

It is a pleasure at this time to contemplate 
Raleigh as a courtier favoring toleration in re- 
ligion at home. Rev. John Udall, of the estab- 
lished Church, had become a non-conformist, and 
written in favor of Reform in ecclesiastical polity. 
He was a man of learning and eloquence. The 
first Hebrew grammar in English was written by 
him. His principal work on Church reform was 
entitled, "The Demonstration of Discipline which 
Christ hath Presented in his Word for the Gov- 
ernment of the Church in all Times and Places 
until the World's end." For publishing this work 
he was absurdly charged with libel on the queen's 
majesty, and was brought to trial in fetters. He 
was condemned on written depositions against 
him, no personal testimony being admitted, and no 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 75 

written defense allowed to him. He was sent to 
prison, and remained a year before he received 
sentence of death. Raleigh's attention was turned 
to this unhappy case, and he took an earnest in- 
terest in his behalf. He got word to Udall to 
write through him a letter to the queen protesting 
his loyalty as a subject of the realm. He did so, 
praying that his punishment might be commuted 
to banishment. A reprieve Avas granted, and it 
was proposed to send him to Guinea on condition 
that he should be kept there until his sentence 
was revoked by the queen. Udall objected to 
this condition, and while the subject was yet 
pending, he was taken ill, and died in prison. 

Raleigh in the same spirit united with Essex to 
resist the expatriation of the Brownists. Robert 
Brown was a minister of the Church of England; 
but his studies in theology produced in his ardent 
mind a deep conviction that the polity of the es- 
tablished Church was anti-christian. He preached 
on this subject in Norwich in 1581, and converted 
a number to his views, and for this was arraigned 
before the ecclesiastical commissioners, who con- 



76 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

demned him partly for his heresies and partly 
for his rude behavior, and sent him to prison. 
Obtaining release in a short time, he went with 
certain of his disciples to Zealand. There he 
wrote a book entitled, "A Treatise of Reforma- 
tion without Tarrying for any Man." In 1585 
he was back again in England, and went on 
with his work of reformation until he was ex- 
communicated by the Bishop of Peterborough. 
He was subsequently made obsequious to the rule 
of the Church, and accepted a living in North- 
haraptonshire, of which it is said "he received 
the emoluments without discharging the duties." 
His opinions, however discussed, made him un- 
popular; but his violence of manner intensified 
his troubles, and made him a martyr. He boasted 
that he had been in thirty-two prisons, and finally, 
in 163P, he died in Northampton jail, where he 
was imprisoned for ' ' assaulting a constable and 
insulting a magistrate." The views of this ex- 
traordinary man were shared by many better 
people than himself, and a sect was established 
in the north of England called Brownists, among 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 77 

whom was the Rev. John Robinson, and the 
glorious band, who fled first to Holland and 
afterward to Plymouth in Massachusetts — the pil- 
grims of the Mayflower— \hQ beginning of the 
noble Church of American Congregationalists. 

A law was propounded in Parliament against 
the Brownists and other schismatics, which drew 
out the eloquent opposition of Raleigh. The law 
specified that ''any person above sixteen years 
of age who refused, during the space of a month, 
to attend public worship, should be committed to 
prison; and if persisting for three months in such 
determination be banished the realm wider pain 
of death if detected in returning^ Against this law 
Raleigh, though sharing the popular prejudice 
against heretics, protested as unjust,^ cruel, and 
impolitic. '' In my conceit," he said, ''the Brown- 
ists are worthy to be rooted out of a common- 
wealth; but what danger may grow to ourselves 
if this law passed were fit to considered ? For it 
is to be feared tliat men not guilty will be in- 
cluded in it; and that law is hard that taketh life 
and sendeth into banishment, when man's in- 



78 Sir Walter Raleigh, 

tentions shall be judged by a jury, and they 
shall be judges of what another means. But a 
law which is against a fact is just; and punish 
the fact as severely as you will. If two or three 
thousand Brownists meet at the sea, at whose 
charge shall they be transported ? and where 
shall they be sent ? I am sorry for it, but I am 
afraid that there are near twenty thousand of 
them in England; and when they are gone, who 
shall maintain their wives and children." This 
argument shows the dawn of the true idea of re- 
ligious toleration, which Roger Williams first fully 
developed and crystallized into public law, and 
which is now the glory of both England and 
America. He prevailed so far as to have the 
bill committed for revision to a committee, of 
which he was appointed a member. 

The modifications of this law which Raleigh 
secured were as favorable to Roman Catholics as 
to Protestant dissenters; but on account of his 
opposition to the Jesuits and their seminaries he 
excited the wrath of one Father Parsons, who 
was chief penitentiary of this order in Rome, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 79 

and was sent to England by the pope to *festablish 
his order there, with a view to the displacing the 
Protestant succession to the crown. This man 
got up a cry of atheism against Raleigh, and 
a charge of planning a school of infidelity in 
which the Bible was a subject of ridicule. His 
real offense was, advising Queen Elizabeth in 
council to issue a proclamation against the Jesuit- 
ical establishment, a measure which has saved 
England from their machinations, and which has 
been again and again imitated by the govern- 
ments of Catholic nations. 

While the pope held a temporal scepter, and 
assumed to be chief of the kings of the earth, 
the Jesuits were not to be regarded as a religious 
sect merely, but as principally a political society, 
scheming for the ascendancy of the papal power 
over all nations. At this day, though the pope 
has lost his crown, and is nothing more than 
chief bishop of Roman Catholics, yet he still 
holds his claim to the triple crown, and his emis- 
saries are striving to restore him to his lost 
position. It is right, tlierefore, that they should 



8o Sir Walter Raleigh. 

be treated differently from strictly religious sec- 
tarians. 

We come now to a scene of tragic romance in 
the life of Raleigh, which was to affect his whole 
subsequent life. He excites the deepest displeas- 
ure of the queen by a secret marriage with Eliza- 
beth Throckmorton, one of the ladies of the bed- 
chamber. Why he should conceal his courtship 
and marriage from the queen is not known, though 
the most recent and authentic biographies ascribe 
it to her jealousy of all rivals to the affection she 
claimed of her favorites. Lord Essex, two years 
before, had the same experience by his secret 
marriage with Frances Walsingham, the widow of 
Sir Philip Sidney. 

EHzabeth was the daughter of Sir Nicholas 
Throckmorton, a man of superior mind and cul- 
ture, descended from an ancient and honorable 
family. From the pictures of her, which have 
been copied from originals, she appears to have 
possessed surpassing beauty of face and form, 
and her subsequent life shows her possessed of 
mental and moral traits befitting the wife of such 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 8i 

a man as Sir Walter Raleigh. She was eighteen 
years his junior, and she survived to mourn his 
tragic death nearly as many years. 

The queen was piqued by this clandestine 
alliance, and immediately dismissed her maid of 
honor from her court, and deprived Sir Walter of 
his office as gentleman of the privy chamber, and 
ordered his imprisonment in the Tower. Some 
other complaint, probably in reference to his 
seizure of prizes, may have been connected with 
this harsh treatment ; but it is all a matter of 
inference and conjecture, as no account of it 
appears in State records. 

Spenser's '' Faerie Queene " is supposed to 
refer to this affair, and to make disappointed love 
the real cause of Elizabeth's excessive displeasure. 
Timias attends Belphoebe, and attracts her love. 
One day a young lady, Amoret, is seized in a 
forest by a wild man of the woods, and Timias 
comes to her rescue. A battle ensues of doubt- 
ful issue, until Belphoebe is seen by the monster 
to approach, and he flees, to encounter a sharp 

arrow from her bow, and dies. Upon coming to 

6 



82 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

the scene of the conflict she finds Timias fondly 

striving to restore Amoret from a swoon into 

which she was fallen. 

"There she found him, by that new lovely mate, 
Who lay the whiles in swoon full sadly set, 
From her fair eyes wiping the dewy wet, 

Which softly 'stilled : and kissing them atween, 
And handling soft the hurts which she did get ; 

For of that carle she sorely bruised had been ; 
Which, when she saw with sudden glancing eye. 

Her noble heart with sight thereof was filled 
With deep disdain and great indignity. 

That in her wrath she thought them both t' have thrilled 

With that self arrow which the carle had killed, 
Yet held her wrathful hand from vengeance sore; 

But drawing nigh, ere he her well beheld, 

' Is this Ihy faith ?' she said, and said no more, 
But turned her face and fled away for evermore." 

It is certain that Raleigh had more or less 
personal attachment to the queen, and deeply 
regretted the loss of her friendship. 

An amusing story is told of an outburst of his- 
emotions on being informed that the queen was 
about coming to visit Sir George Carew, keeper 
of the Tower. Seeing the royal procession ap- 
proaching in gay barges, he became almost frantic 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 83 

with passion to get out of prison, and to get into 
a boat in disguise, and see the queen. Sir George 
resisted his importunity, and swords were drawn, 
which might have proved fatal to one or both of 
them, had not Sir Arthur Gorges, who happened 
to be present, interfered. In doing it. Sir Ar- 
thur received a severe cut on his knuckles, which 
arrested their attention, and ''they stayed the 
brawl," he says, "to see my bloody fingers. I 
was ready to break with laughing to see the two 
scramble and brawl like madmen, until I saw 
the iron walking, and then I did my best to ap- 
pease the fury. As yet I can not reconcile them 
by any persuasion, for Sir Walter swears that ho 
shall hate him while he lives for so restrain iiig 
him from the sight of his mistress; for that he 
knows not (as he said) whether he shall see her 
again when she is gone the progress." This ab- 
surd adulation shows how Raleigh wrought on 
the affections of a maiden queen, and made it an 
unpardonable offense to love and marry an oilier. 
His imprisonment was not solitary. He had 
the company of his young and beautiful wife. 



84 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

whose attachment to him was unbroken through 
all the vicissitudes of his eventful life, and his 
many friends were allowed to visit him without 
reserve. He was called out for a time to attend 
to the apportionment of the spoils found in the 
Madre de Dios. His influence with the sailors 
was unbounded, and there was a great huzzaing 
when he came among them. The queen ex- 
ceeded every body in her rapacity, and Raleigh, 
captive as he was, protested against it. His own 
expense for the expedition was thirty-four thou- 
sand pounds, and the share allowed him by the 
government was only thirty-six thousand pounds. 
The envy of Lord Burghley was partly the cause 
of this injustice. This was the man that Spenser 
describes in the "Ruins of Time" — 

*'0 grief of griefs! O gall of the hearts! 
To see that virtue should despised be 
Of him that first was raised for virtuous parts, 
And now, broad spreading like an aged tree, 
Lets none shoot up that nigh him planted be." 

After Raleigh's release from the Tower, we 
find him cultivating gardens at his place in Sher- 
borne, Dorsetshire. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 85 



dlikptef IX. 

EXPEDITIONS TO GUIANA. 

/'~^ UIANA, as now known, is that portion of 
^-^ South America lying on the north-east slope 
of the continent, south of the Orinoco River, and 
extending as far as the Sierra Acarai, and not 
to the Amazon River, as formerly marked in the 
geographies. The largest part of it is possessed 
by the British, Dutch, and French. English Gui- 
ana has three sections — Essequibo, Demerara, 
and Berbice. The region on the coast is level, 
and in the interior mountainous. The valleys are 
exceedingly fertile, and the hills are full of miner- 
als of various kinds; but it has no gold or silver 
mines of any value. It abounds with beasts and 
birds and fishes and reptiles similar to most tropi- 
cal regions. The descendants of the aborigines 
are yet numerous, and occupy chiefly the remote 
interior. There is also a race of negroes, de- 



86 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

scended from fugitive slaves, who formerly gave 
the Dutch settlement much trouble by their in- 
cursions. 

Guiana, m the days of Queen Elizabeth, was 
reported to be the realm of the golden city of 
El Dorado. This was the name first given to an 
imaginary king, Avho was said to powder himself 
Avith gold dust, and then go and wash in tlie 
rivers, and so scatter the precious spangles all 
over the sands. The wildest ideas of gold mines 
and banks of gold obtained among European ad- 
venturers, which lured them from home, and left 
them to disappointment. Sir Walter Raleigh was 
affected by these dreams. He wrote a history of 
Guiana, in which he says: " Many years since he 
had knowledge by relation of that mighty, rich, 
and beautiful empire of Guiana, and of that great 
and golden city which the Spaniards call El 
Dorado and the natives Manoa." He first sent 
forth, in 1594, two pioneers, Whiddon and Par- 
ker, who brought back word that there was an 
El Dorado there, but it was six hundred miles into 
the interior. They were specially instructed to 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 87 

explore the Orinoco River; but they acquired 
but little information in regard to it. However, 
encouraged and assisted by Sir Robert Cecil and 
Lord Howard, Sir Walter went forward in his 
preparation for a voyage of discovery and perhaps 
settlement. He fitted out a fleet of five vessels, 
with all sorts of provisions, barges, and boats for 
ascending the streams, instruments for mining, 
and arms for defense. He left Plymouth on the 
9th of February, 1595, and in about six or seven 
weeks he reached the Island of Trinidad off the 
north coast of South America. On his way he 
captured a Spanish vessel laden with fire arms, 
from which he exacted a ransom, and also a 
Flemish ship, from which he took twenty butts 
of wine. 

The Spanish governor of Trinidad was An- 
tonio de Berreo. This man had maltreated Whid- 
don, and imprisoned some of his crew, and he 
was guilty of cruel treatment of the natives. Sir 
Walter directly made an attack upon the town of 
St. Joseph, and captured it, and took Berreo pris- 
oner. He found five Indian caciques or chiefs 



88 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

bound to a single chair, on whom Berreo had in- 
flicted inquisitorial tortures. He liberated them, 
and treated them with the utmost kindness, as 
he did all the natives who came on board his 
ships. Berreo, who had made a voyage up the 
Orinoco, he spared, and made him useful as an 
informer and guide in his expedition. This man 
had married a daughter of a previous discoverer 
on condition that he should j^ursue the enterprise, 
and he related to Raleigh all that he knew about 
tlie country of Guiana, and much probably that 
he did not know. Among other marvels he said 
that the natives presented him "with ten images 
of fine gold, among divers other plates and crois- 
sants, which were so curiously Avrought, as he 
had not seen the like either in Italy, Spain, or 
the Low Countries. And he was resolved that 
when they came to the hands of the Spanish king, 
to whom he had sent them by his camp-master, 
they would appear very admirable, especially 
being wrought by such a nation as had no iron 
instruments nor any of those helps which our 
goldsmiths have to work withal." Berreo had 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 89 

already sent his lieutenant, Domingo de Vera, to 
Spain to interest the king in behalf of another 
exploration and conquest of Guiana. This man 
told stories about the country and the natives 
of the most mythical and extravagant character, 
which have been absurdly accredited to Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh, because he recorded them as he 
heard them in his ''History of Guiana." De Vera 
said the men of that country "had the points of 
their shoulders higher than the crowns of their 
heads. They had many eagles of gold hanging 
on their breasts, and pearls in their ears, and 
when they danced were all covered with gold." 
In one province, he affirms, there were "so many 
Indians as would shadow the sun, and so much 
gold that all yonder plain will not contain it. 
They take of said gold in dust, and anoint them- 
selves all over with it to make a braver show, 
and to the end that gold may cover them, they 
anoint their bodies with stamped herbs of a glu- 
tinous substance." These tales awakened a great 
enthusiasm of colonization in Spain, and full two 
thousand persons, including monks and priests, 



90 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

embarked with De Vera on five ships to take 
possession of the real El Dorado. This expedi- 
tion was on its way while De Berreo was talking 
with Sir Walter ; and, though he kept assuring him 
that the country was full of riches, he neverthe- 
less tried to persuade him that it was too hazard- 
ous for the English to attempt its possession. 
Among other things of interest related by De 
Berreo was that one Martinez, who was put 
ashore and deserted by his comrades for neglect 
of duty, was picked up by the Indians, and was 
actually carried to Manoa, the capital of El Do- 
rado. He was blindfolded when approaching it, 
and was kept from seeing any of the surrounding 
country; but he was permitted to see the city 
when inside of it, and was brought, after travers- 
ing the city nearly two days, to the palace of the 
emperor. 

Nothing daunted. Sir Walter left his ships at 
Los Gallos, having put a hundred persons in five 
small barges, with a month's provisions and am- 
munition, and crossed the bay or gulf of Paria 
to the mouth of the river. They had a young 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 91 

Indian for a pilot; but when they got into the 
river, they found such a multitude of branches 
that it seemed a perfect "labyrinth" of rivers 
and islands, and they would have hopelessly lost 
their way, had they not come upon a canoe with 
three Indians, one of whom they found to be an 
experienced pilot. Their voyage was full of dif- 
ficulty and perils. Twice the largest of the barges 
run aground, and they were advised by their pilot 
to leave it, and use only the smaller boats. Do- 
ing this, and passing up a narrow stream, they 
emerged into an open country twenty miles 
in length, beautifully diversified, and looking 
like a cultivated land. But after rowing with 
great toil against the current hundreds of miles, 
they seemed no nearer the fabled -«ity. They 
took plenty of game to supply them with meat, 
but the bread began to be exhausted. At length 
this demand was met by meeting several canoes 
of Indians called Arroacas, who supplied them with 
excellent bread, and also furnished another pilot. 
The characteristic sudden flooding of the rivers 
surprised and alarmed them, and having discov- 



92 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

ered, as they thought, several gold mines which 
might be worked with profit, they would have 
ended their voyage, had they not a higher end in 
view than to find gold. This object was to sur- 
vey the country, and mark it for an English col- 
ony. The voyage was pursued as far as the 
mouth of the River Caroni, and near the Island 
of Tortola. There he was visited by swarms of 
the Indians, who had heard of the difference be- 
tween Englishmen and Spaniards, and of the kind 
treatment of the natives by Sir Walter. Friendly 
trades were made, of fruits and victuals of various 
kinds, for such trinkets as were valuable in the 
eyes of savages. Sir Walter entertained the old 
chief of this region, Topiawari, with tales of 
England, and especially of the wonderful ruler, 
Queen Elizabeth; and he seems to be impressed 
with the good sense and information possessed by 
the aged monarch of the woods. 

Had Sir Walter accompanied in person the 
various expeditions by which he sought in vain 
to colonize Virginia, I can not help thinking, a 
different fate would have attended them. The 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 93 

one great mistake of American colonization has 
been cruelty to the aborigines. 

While halting his company at the mouth of the 
Caroni, he sent off parties to hunt for minerals, 
while he, with a few attendants, went by land to 
view the falls. The ascent of the river by boats 
was found impossible on account of the impetu- 
osity of the current. *'When we ran to the tops 
of the first hills of the plains adjoining the river," 
he writes, "we beheld this wonderful rush of 
water which ran down the Caroli [now spelled 
Caroni], and might from that mountain see the 
river, how it ran in those parts above twenty 
miles off; and there appeared some ten or twelve 
other falls in sight, every one as high over the 
other as a church -tower; which fell with that 
fury that the rebound of the waters made it seem 
as if it had been covered over with a great 
shower of rain; and in some places we took it, 
at the first, for a smoke that had risen over some 
great town." 

The explorers for gold had no instruments but 
their daggers to dig into the mines; but they 



94 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

brought back some samples, which were pro- 
nounced by assayers in London to be indicative 
of valuable placers. 

They were now ready to return to their ships. 
Bidding adieu to their new friends, with a promise 
to return some day, they launched upon the de- 
scending current, and made such rapid progress 
that in a few days they came to the mouth of 
the river. 

At one place they delayed their homeward 
voyage, and made a visit to a town called 
Winecoposa. There they found the people cele- 
brating a feast at the house of their chief, and 
"all as drunk as beggars;" but they were wel- 
comed to partake of their viands and liquor. 
Withdrawing to their boats, the people came to 
them from all parts of the country with abundant 
supplies of fowls and other provisions, including 
"si delicate wine of pinao." 

As they approached the mouth of the Orinoco 
it was greatly swollen, and rough with surges. 
A storm set in, and they took shelter under the 
land with the small boats; but the galley was not 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 95 

so conveniently harbored, and came near sinking, 
with all on board. Leaving it to come after. Sir 
Walter set out, as soon as the storm lulled a litde, 
in his barge, and made for Trinidad and his ships 
at Curiapan. Great was their joy when they saw 
them at anchor where they had left them. The 
galley, with the other boats, coming, in a few 
days they set sail for England, and arrived there 
some time in August, 1595. 

A narrative of this voyage was published by 
Raleigh, entitled "The Discovery of Guiana," 
which, with some colorings and exaggerations of 
fancy, has been verified by subsequent explora- 
tions. In this lie mentions that the old chieftain, 
Topiawari, urged him to come again, and advised 
him in that case to make a league with those 
tribes at variance with the tribes of Inga, other- 
wise he might share the fate of a former expedi- 
tion of De Berreo, whose followers were flanked 
by those border Indians, and three hundred of 
them killed. "The borderers, setting the long 
dry grass on fire, so smothered them as they had 
no breath to fight, nor could discern their enemies 



gS Sir Walter Raleigh. 

for the great smoke." Two of his company were 
left with Topiawari by their request, Francis 
Sparrey, a trader, and Hugh Goodwin, a youth 
who was ambitious to learn the language of the 
natives. Sparrey was exhorted by Raleigh to find 
the great city of Manoa; but he fell into the 
liands of the Spaniards, and was sent to Spain, 
whence he escaped to England. 

In his second expedition to Guiana Sir Walter 
found Goodwin at Galiana, in 1617, and obtained 
from him "a great store of bread." He had 
been so long in the Indian country that he had 
almost lost his native language. What became 
of him afterward is not quite certain, but Oldys 
reported that "he was devoured by a tiger," On 
his part Topiawari gave his only son to Raleigh, 
who took him with him to England. 

Raleigh had meditated a visit to his colony in 
Virginia on his homeward voyage, but the tem- 
pestuous weather prevented the execution of his 
design. Having commission from Queen Eliza- 
betli to do all the damage possible to her enemies, 
the Spanish, he stopped at Cumana, St. Mary's, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 97 

and Rio de la Hacha, and compelled them to 
furnish supplies for his fleet. 

He had scarcely rested at home before he set 
about a second expedition to Guiana. This he 
intrusted to Captain Keymis, one of the captains 
of the first expedition. On his arrival he found 
the mouth of the River Caroni in possession of a 
party of Spaniards, under the direction of De 
Berreo, and his way to the mines effectually 
blocked. But he went on exploring the country, 
beyond the range of Raleigh's observations; and 
returned in a few months, with valuable addi- 
tions to their geographical knowledge. 

Persisting in his purpose of adding Guiana to 
the English possessions, he makes a further appeal 
to the public, in a pamphlet entitled "Of a 
Voyage to Guiana," on the ground that "by this 
means infinite numbers of souls may be brought 
from their idolatry, bloody sacrifices, ignorance, 
and incivility, to the worshiping aright of the 
true God, and to civil conversation. This will 
stop the mouths of the Roman Catholics, who 
boast of their great adventures for the propagation 

7 



98 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

of the Gospel ; it will add great increase of honor 
to the memory of Her Majesty's name upon earth 
to all posterity; and in the end be rewarded with 
an excellent starlight splendency in the heavens, 
which is reserved for them that turn many unto 
righteousness, as the prophet speaketh." Not 
finding any support from government, he fits out 
at his own expense another small ship, under the 
command of Captain Leonard Perry, in 1596; 
and in 1598 he had engaged the Duke of Finland 
to join him with twelve ships to establish a colony 
in Guiana; but by some means not now known 
this scheme proved abortive. Nothing more was 
attempted during the reign of Elizabeth. 

The noble conduct of Raleigh in these enter- 
prises completely restored him to the favor of the 
queen ; though the envy and ill-will of some peo- 
ple were thereby excited against him. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 99 



NAVAL EXPEDITION AGAINST CADIZ — THE ISLAND'S ENTER- 
PRISE — BREACH WITH ESSEX. 

TN 1596 Lord Admiral Howard revived a 
-^ Scheme of attacking Cadiz, first suggested by 
Sir John Hawkins in 1587, which was made so 
effectual that in the sequel it was more advan- 
tageous to England than the destruction of the 
Armada. At first it was embarrassed by the hes- 
itation of the queen as to whom she should in- 
trust the command. At length her personal 
favoritism of Essex decided in his favor. Lord 
Admiral Howard was made second in command, 
and Sir Walter Raleigh and Lord Thomas How- 
ard were ranked next in order. The fleet num- 
bered one hundred and twenty-one ships, includ- 
ing twenty-four Dutch ships, besides pinnaces and 
barges, and was divided into four separate squad- 
rons. The whole number of sailors and soldiers 



loo Sir Walter Raleigh. 

was sixteen thousand. The principal object was 
the destruction of the Spanish navy and the 
seizure of rich merchant ships, rather than the 
taking of Cadiz. This agreed with the judgment 
of Sir Walter Raleigh. Some delay was made by 
the repugnance of the soldiers and sailors who 
were pressed into the service. Desertions took 
place every day, until some of them were tried 
by martial law and hung, which had the effect to 
intimidate the rest and secure subordination. 

Early in June the fleet left Plymouth Sound, 
and arrived off Cadiz on the 20th of this month. 
The harbor was defended by about eighty war- 
vessels, including twenty galleys. Essex prepared 
to land the soldiers, and immediately attack the 
fort; but a council of war was objecting, when 
Raleigh, having arrived from some excursion, 
joined in the objections, and it was finally con- 
cluded to attack the ships of war. Raleigh was 
ordered to lead the assault. As soon as day 
began to break he started in the War Sprtghf, 
followed by the ships of his squadron. Passing 
the galleys, which he regarded but as ''masks," 



Pioneer of American Colonization, ioi 

he made directly for the Philip and the Andrew, 
the leading ships, and the two largest in the Span- 
ish navy. For three hours he battled with both 
of them, and then determined to board the Philip, 
and end the fight in that way. But the order 
was not to board without the aid of the flyboats, 
and they were not come. At that moment he 
saw the flag-ship of Essex approaching, and fling- 
ing himself into a skiff", he rowed to him, and 
demanded permission to board at once. Essex 
tried to persuade him against taking so great a 
hazard, but finally bade him do as he would, say- 
ing, "I will second you, upon my honor." He 
returned to his ship, and brought her into position 
to board, when the Philip drew back, and ran 
aground. Her crew sprang into the sea, and she 
was blown up. Sir Walter then turned to engage 
other ships, and succeeded in taking two, the 
St. Afidrew and St. Matthew, which were after- 
ward brought to England — the only ships cap- 
tured that were not destroyed. The whole naval 
battle, of which we have only a glimpse, went on 
in the same fashion. Sir Walter compared it to 



102 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

'Miell itself." The victory of the English was 
complete. Thirteen war ships and seventeen gal- 
leys were taken or destroyed. 

Cadiz is built upon a peninsula, and it was 
now the first object of the English to prevent all 
communication with the mainland. The soldiers 
were landed, and, headed by Essex, made an as- 
sault upon the nearest gate. Raleigh had been 
wounded in the naval battle; but he was borne 
on a litter into the fight, and was one of the first 
that entered into the captured town. With the 
town the whole of the merchant ships in the har- 
bor and their stores fell. An offer of two millions 
of ducats was accepted from the merchants of 
Cadiz and Seville as ransom for the India fleet 
that then lay at Puerte Real; but the fleet was 
set on fire by the Duke of Medina. One hun- 
dred and twenty thousand ducats was offered for 
the ransom of the lives of the combatants in the 
city, and fifty persons were delivered as hostages 
for its payment; but the money not being paid, 
the hostages were carried prisoners to England. 
The fortifications of Cadiz and much of the town 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 103 

was rased to the ground. But nobody was killed 
or abused after the surrender, but all the cap- 
tives were carried to the Port of St. Mary. 

The people of England were in raptures over 
this great victory, and many a home was made 
glad by the return of friends who had been pris- 
oners of war and slaves in the Spanish galleys. 
Great quarreling ensued in respect to the spoils 
by the parties concerned, and rumor told false- 
hood if Queen Elizabeth was not the most grasp- 
ing of all. The wife of Admiral Howard writes, 
''It was told me certainly that my lord should 
have his part, five thousand pounds, and Sir 
Walter Raleigh three thousand pounds; but being 
at court yesterday, I heard that the queen claimed 
all, and my Lord of Essex, it is thought, will yield 
his right to her majesty. My lord hath spent 
already twenty thousand pounds in the queen's 
service." 

It was the year after these events that Raleigh 
was reinstated in his old office of captain of the 
guard. At first Essex received him coldly, but 
after a while their friendly relations were re- 



104 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

sumed. Cecil, who was now Secretary of State, 
had contributed to the restoration of Raleigh, and 
an endeavor was made on his part to reconcile 
Essex to Cecil, but not with the greatest success. 
This year was marked by another expedition 
against the Spaniards. It was rumored that 
Philip II had determined on creating another 
Armada more invincible than the former, where- 
with to assail the English. Sir Walter Raleigh 
wrote a pamphlet upon the subject, in which he 
expresses the opinion that it was not to be believed 
that the King of Spain should attempt such a thing 
after the disasters he had already experienced; 
nevertheless he advised that the nation should be 
prepared for any event by suitable defenses along 
the coast. Moreover, he proposes that the initia- 
tive should be taken by an expedition against the 
Spanish navy and commerce. This new enter- 
prise was called the Island's Voyage, as it re- 
sulted in the conquest of the Azores. It was at 
first intended to equip ten ships, and place them 
under the joint command of Raleigh and Lord 
Thomas Howard; but the plan was afterward 



Pioneer OF American Colonization. 105 

much enlarged, and three squadrons were fitted 
out, commanded by Essex as admiral, with Lord 
Thomas Howard as vice-admiral, and Raleigh as 
rear-admiral. With these joined a Dutch squadron 
of twelve ships, commanded by Admiral Van der 
Woord. This great fleet put out to sea from Ply- 
mouth Sound on the loth of July, 1597, but was 
soon overtaken by a terrific tempest, which came 
near sinking them altogether, and so disabled sev- 
eral of the best ships that they were all obliged 
to put back to various ports for repairs. It was 
afterward concluded to leave the land forces, 
and rely exclusively upon the ships. 

The 17th of August found them again afloat, 
and proceeding to the coast of Spain. Off Cape 
Ortegal they encountered another terrible gale 
blowing directly out of the port of Ferrol. A 
council of war was called, and it was agreed to 
abandon the project of attacking Ferrol and 
Corunna, and proceed to the Azores. Sir Wal- 
ter's ship was disabled, and he could not keep 
up with the movements of the fleet; but at length 
he joined it at Flores, one of the Azores, in lati- 



io6 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

tude 36° to 39°. Essex was enraged at the ab- 
sence of Raleigh, and had written to England, 
charging him with treachery and desertion. This 
he frankly and regretfully confessed when he 
found his mistake. Subsequently a collision took 
place in respect to the assault upon Fayal. The 
order was for Raleigh to support Essex; but it 
happened that Raleigh arrived three days before 
Essex, and waiting all that time, and not know- 
ing what had happened to the admiral, he landed 
his men, and captured the place. When chal- 
lenged for breach of order, he defended himself by 
quoting an article in the orders, which run: "No 
captain of any ship or company, if he be severed 
from the fleet, shall wend anywhere without di- 
rections from the general or some other piincipal 
commander, upon pain of death." Lord Thomas 
Howard interposed between the commanders, 
and the apology was accepted; but much ill 
feeling continued to exist between them, fo- 
mented by Sir Christopher Blount and other in- 
fluential adherents of Essex, who were unfriendly 
to Raleigh. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 107 

To persons so disposed, envy had much provo- 
cation in the matter of this attack on Fayal, for 
it was one of the most briUiant exploits of Sir 
Walter. While waiting for Essex in the harbor 
of Hoctii, the chief town of the island, Sir Wal- 
ter sought to improve the time to take in water. 
While about this business, he was fired upon by 
the garrison, which so excited his sailors that they 
demanded to be led to the assault. Taking his 
ship as near the shore as was convenient, he took 
two hundred and fifty men, and attempted to 
land them in barges on the rock-bound shore. 
The Spanish forces lined the shore, and opened 
such a fire upon them that a panic seized his 
men, and they began to push back^ when Ra- 
leigh, shouting to them to follow him, shoved his 
barge forward toward a narrow passage between 
the rocks, where a landing was practicable. The 
retreating sailors rallied, and the whole force 
rushed to his support ; and being joined by other 
barges from the Netherland squadron, the Spanish 
troops retreated into the woods, and left the town 
an easy prey to the victors. Sir Gilly Merrick 



io8 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

had objected to the storming of the town, and 
he represented that it was done to deprive the 
admiral of the honor of the exploit. Besides the 
taking of these islands, the fleet captured eighteen 
Spanish vessels, including several very rich prizes. 
Raleigh's squadron fell in with a very rich carack, 
and would have taken it as a prize ; but the crew 
set it on fire, and escaped in boats, while Raleigh 
in vain attempted to extinguish the flames. A 
Spanish squadron, sent forth from Ferrol, was 
overtaken by a storm and sunk. So Providence 
interfered for the protection of England. 

"The Islands' Voyage" would have been a 
failure but for the part which Raleigh took in it. 
His reputation was enhanced by it, and he be- 
came chief among the counselors of the queen 
in her relations to Spanish affairs. He constantly 
advises that the power of Spain must be guarded 
against, not by costly bulwarks on the English 
coast, but by ships of war and naval expeditions 
against her commerce, her extended colonies, and 
her maritime ports. In after years he wrote, "If 
the late queen would have believed her men of 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 109 

war as she did her scribes, we had, in her time, 
beaten that great empire to pieces, and made 
their kings kings of figs and oranges as in old 
times. But her majesty did all by halves, and by 
petty invasions taught the Spaniard how to defend 
himself, and to see liis own weakness, which, till 
our attempts taught him, was hardly known to him- 
self. Four thousand men would have taken from 
him all the ports of his Indies; I mean all his 
ports by which his treasure doth or can pass. 
He is more hated in that part of the world by 
the sons of the conquered than are the English 
by the Irish." 



no Sir Walter Raleigh. 



C!l\k.ptef XI. 

RALEIGH AND HIS COMPEERS AT COURT — REVOLT AND 
EXECUTION OF ESSEX. 

"T) ALEIGH and Essex were now much together 
-*- ^ in the court and councils of Queen Elizabeth, 
and though they never were affected with cordial 
friendship for each other, yet they harmonized in 
conduct, and on one marked occasion, Raleigh 
was of much service to the Earl. While Essex 
was prosecuting the Cadiz expedition, Robert 
Cecil was made Secretary of State, at which 
Essex took offense, especially because he had 
recommended for that office Sir Thomas Bodley, 
the founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford 
University. He also was annoyed and humiliated 
by the bestowment of the Earldom of Nottingham 
upon Lord Howard, as a reward for his services 
m the recent naval expeditions; inasmuch as this 
elevation, in connection with his office of lord 
high admiral, gave him, according to the statutes. 



Pioneer of American Colonization, hi 

the precedence over Essex. Raleigh found no 
way to adjust this delicate matter but to suggest 
to the queen to create Essex earl marshal of 
England. This she did; but it gave offense to 
Nottingham, and he withdrew for a time from 
court to his estate in Chelsea. 

All this time it seems that Essex was losing 
somewhat the favor of the queen. This down- 
ward tendency was increased by the encourage- 
ment which Essex gave, contrary to the views of 
the queen, to the marriage of the Earl of South- 
ampton, one of her courtiers, to Elizabeth Vernon, 
which resulted in his dismissal from court and 
confinement for a time in the ''Fleet" prison. 
He afterward gave mortal offense to the queen, 
in one of his angry moods, by contemptuous 
words and gestures. This she never forgave. 

She was annoyed by the rivalry of Raleigh 
and Essex. This was displayed in an extraor- 
dinary and even ridiculous manner, at a tourna- 
ment given in honor of the queen's birthday. 
On this occasion Raleigh was arrayed in a suit 
of armor very splendid and costly, and the jewels 



112 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

lie wore were valued at a quarter of a million of 
dollars. He had a numerous retinue prepared for 
the second day's tilt arrayed in gorgeous apparel, 
with orange-colored feathers in their caps. Essex, 
being apprised of this, appeared in a suit of 
orange-color, followed by two thousand retainers 
adorned with orange-colored feathers! 

The affairs of Ireland at this time were excit- 
ing great solicitude, and a leader was called for 
who should be able to subdue the rebellion that 
was rising in that unhappy country. Raleigh was 
the man to whom attention was first turned, but 
he declined altogether; and the choice wavered 
between Earl Essex and Charles Blount, now 
Lord Mountjoy. By the urgent solicitation of the 
latter, it was finally settled that Essex should be 
made Lord Deputy. He exulted in his success. 
"I have beaten Raleigh and Knollys in the 
council," he exclaimed, as he set out for Ireland, 
"and I will beat Sir Owen in the field; for 
nothing worthy of Her Majesty's honor has yet 
been achieved." Alas! this Irish expedition was 
the beginning of his ruin. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 113 

O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, instigated by the pope 
and the King of Spain, had commenced the re- 
bellion with a formidable body of troops, and to 
meet and subdue him was the first object to be 
gained. Essex, however, turned aside to suppress 
an outbreak in Munster, and was so far disabled 
by the conflict that he thought it prudent not to 
attack Tyrone, but to negotiate with him. This 
transaction was denounced at court, and a very 
sharp altercation by letters took place, which in- 
duced him to quit his command to defend him- 
self in person. 

When he arrived at the court, without chang- 
ing his apparel, he rushed into the queen's bed- 
chamber, and fell down on his knees to plead 
with her. But his case was submitted to a coTin- 
cil, and resulted in his being deprived of his 
office, and all other public positions except that 
of master of the horse. 

Soon after this he engaged in correspondence 
with the King of Scotland, in respect of procuring 
a public recognition of his right to the English 
crown on the demise of Elizabeth. He corre- 



114 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

sponded also with Lord Mountjoy, now Deputy 
of Ireland, to induce him to employ the troops 
under his command to enforce this measure. 
He conspired, furthermore, to seize the queen's 
person, and revolutionize the government. 

Finding that his schemes were discovered and 
exposed, he made an effort to incite the populace 
of London in his favor, and his intention was by 
their aid to make his way to the presence of the 
queen. Raleigh sent a messenger to one of his 
old friends. Sir Ferdinand Gorges, to meet him 
at Durham House. Essex was consulted about 
this, and he advised Gorges to go by Avater, but 
not to land at the Durham House. At this inter- 
view Sir Walter advised him of his danger, and 
exhorted him to go at once to his post as gover- 
nor of Plymouth. Sir Ferdinand thanked him 
for his advice, but stated that he was engaged 
another way. Upon being asked what he meant 
he said ''there were two thousand gentlemen 
who had resolved this day to die, or live free- 
men." Raleigh expressed surprise, and they 
parted. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 115 

To Essex the queen sent a deputation of four 
privy councilors, the lord keeper, and the chief 
justice, to inquire about what was intended by 
these movements. They found him surrounded by 
a turbulent crowd, and attended by several nobles 
of distinction, and other gentlemen. He ordered 
the commissioners into custody, and went forth 
into the streets, to promote in person the rising 
of the populace. To his dismay, there was no 
indication of popular sympathy, when word came 
of the approach of a strong force under the com- 
mand of the lord admiral. Turning to regain his 
house, he found his way barricaded, and was 
obliged to take boats and come by the river. 
He set about fortifying his house ; but it was soon 
surrounded by the queen's troops, and at mid- 
night he was induced to surrender, and was taken 
to Lambeth Palace, and the next day to the 
Tower. 

He was soon after arraigned at Westminster 
Hall, and charged with treason. The sergeant- 
at-law, Yelverton, in his argument, compared him 
to Catiline, and Coke, the attorney of the crown. 



ii6 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

insinuated that he aimed to become king of Eng- 
land. Essex protested that he meant no more 
than to force his way to the presence of the 
queen, to counteract the machinations of his ene- 
mies. He was condemned to be beheaded, and 
in seven days after the trial this sentence was 
executed. Raleigh was present as captain of the 
guard, aad for that he was charged by his ene- 
mies as exulting in the death of his rival. He 
subsequently protested that, so far from rejoicing, 
he "shed tears at his death," and he was observed 
to be deeply sad as he returned in a boat from the 
Tower. Was it a forecast of his own destiny? 

It was expected that the queen would pardon" 
Essex; but, though she was terribly affected by 
his sad fate, she made no sign of interference. 
She had given him a ring, in the days of his 
prosperity, with the promise that she would par- 
don any offense, if he presented it to her. This 
ring was in the possession of the Countess of 
Nottingham, but her husband forbade her return- 
ing it. This, on her death-bed, she confessed to 
the queen. Elizabeth turned pale, and trembled 




Queen Elizabeth givlngr a Ring to Essex. 



Page I id. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 117 

with grief and indignation at this confession, and 
said ''God might forgive her, but she never 
could !" 

Sir Christopher Blount was tried for his partic- 
ipation in this conspiracy, and was condemned to 
be beheaded on the scaffold. He inquired, "Is 
Sir Walter Raleigh here?" When Sir Walter 
came near he said: "Sir Walter Raleigh, 1 thank 
God that you are present. I had an infinite de- 
sire to speak with you, to ask your forgiveness, 
ere I died. But for the harm done you, and for 
my particular ill intent toward you, I beseech 
you to forgive me." Raleigh replied, "I most 
willingly forgive you, and I beseech God to for- 
give you, and to give you his divine comfort." 
Sir Christopher had exhorted Gorges to seize the 
person of Raleigh on the occasion of their inter- 
view on the Thames; and he had himself, in the 
streets of London, shot at Raleigh four times, 
with intent to kill him. 

Essex was but thirty-four years of age at his 
death. He was born, according to the astrol- 
ogers, under the "disastrous aspect of Mars 



ii8 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

shining adversely upon him, in the eleventh house 
of heaven." It is said that his footman, on his 
death-bed, warned him that that year would be a 
fatal one to him. With all his faults he had a 
generous heart, and was a friend to the common 
people, who mourned his death. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 119 



dlikptei^ XII. 

RALEIGH GOVERN6r OF JERSEY — HIS DOMESTIC LIFE — 
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT — HIS LITERARY ASSOCIATES. 

T T was in 1600 that Raleigh was made governor 
^ of Jersey. This island is interesting to Amer- 
ican readers as having given its name to one of 
the original thirteen United States. It is situated 
in the English Channel, the largest and most 
southern of that group of islands, lying about 
seventeen miles from the coast of France, which 
belongs to Great Britain. It is twelve miles long, 
by an average of six and a half miles broad. Its 
climate is delightfully mild and salubrious, and 
its soul is fertile, especially adapted to producing 
fruits of all kinds common to the Temperate 
Zone. Many remains of Druidical antiquities are 
found there : the old churches are mostly of the 
Gothic style; and the population is in religion 
Roman Catholic. It is distant from England 



I20 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

seventy-five miles. Lady Raleigh writes concern- 
ing her husband's first visit to the island: "He 
Avas two days and two nights on the sea, with 
contrary winds, notwithstanding he went from 
Weymouth with so fair wind and weather as little 
Wat and myself brought him on board the ship. 
He writeth to me that he never saw a pleasanter 
island; but protested unfeignedly that it was not 
in value a third part of what was reported." 

With characteristic zeal he set himself to work 
for the benefit of the island. He commenced a 
system for the registration of the real estate, 
opened a profitable trade with Newfoundland, 
abolished the corps de garde, an oppressive mili- 
tary service imposed on the people, and, as judge 
in civil courts, he exerted his influence to abate 
the litigation to which the people of these peace- 
ful islands seem to have been addicted. 

Sir Walter's home in England was now at 
Sherborne, in Devonshire. Having failed to pur- 
chase the homestead where he was born, he ob- 
tained from Queen Elizabeth an estate which a 
Norman knight bequeathed to the See of Canter- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 121 

bury, with a curse upon any profane person who 
should covet it. It was finally passed over to 
the Bishop of Salisbury, who ceded it to Eliza- 
beth. When Raleigh went to see the place, it is 
related as a bad omen that his horse fell, and 
brought him on his face to the ground. But 
little did he care for such prognostic. He sprang 
up laughing, addressed his half-brother Gilbert, 
and with a joke turned it into a good omen. He 
ventured to make the place an elegant and happy 
home for his family. He built upon it a house 
surpassing, for beauty and convenience, all the 
mansions in that region. Here he enjoyed, when 
absent from Parliament and other public engage- 
ments, the society of his family, and the visits 
of his numerous literary and political friends. 
He was fondly attached to his wife and children, 
kind and generous to his servants, and abundant 
in hospitality. To fix his estate as a family inher- 
itance, in 1602 he settled it upon his eldest son, 
Walter. His second son, Carew, was not yet 
born. We shall see how the conveyance of his 
estate was eventually made void by a clerical 



122 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

error in the omission of a few words. The 
principal inconvenience of this residence was 
its distance from London, where his duties at 
court and as a member of Parliament required 
his presence much of the time. There were no 
railroads in those days, and the post-roads were 
not so perfect as they are now. 

Sir Walter was member of Parliament for 
Devonshire in 1585, and he was returned for 
Cornwall in 1601, in the latter part of the reign 
of Elizabeth. His brother-in-law. Sir Carew Gil- 
bert, was also a member. He exhibited his char- 
acteristic energy and industry in the business of 
committees, and in the debates on the floor of 
the House of Commons. He distinguished him- 
self by his successful objection to the act to pro- 
mote the culture of hemp. On this occasion he 
said: " I do not like this constraining of men to 
manure the ground as one wills; but rather let 
every man use his ground for that which it is 
most fit for, and therein use his own discretion. 
For when the law provides that every man must 
plow the third of his land, . I know divers poor 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 123 

people have done so to avoid the penalty of the 
statute when their abilities have been so poor that 
they have not been able to buy seed corn to sow 
it; nay, they have been fain to hire others to 
plow it, which, if it had been unplowed, would 
have been good pasture for beasts, or might have 
been converted to still other uses." In 1593, he 
took part in the debate on subsidies. " On that oc- 
casion," says Edwards, 'Mie entered into an elabo- 
rate review of the power and resources of Spain ; 
showed that those resources extended virtually 
over Northern as well as Southern Europe ; that 
in France Philip had effectual command of im- 
portant towns and havens ; and tliat even in Scot- 
land he had ' so corrupted the nobility ' that some 
of them had agreed to work with Spanish forces 
for the re-establishment of Papistry, * In his own 
country,' continued Sir Walter, 'there is all pos- 
sible preparation, and he is coming with sixty 
galleons, beside other shipping, with purpose to 
annoy us. If he invade us, we must have no 
ships riding at anchor. All will be little enougli 
to withstand him. At his coming he fully resolv- 



124 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

eth to get Plymouth, . . . and Plymouth is 
in most" danger.' And then he goes on to con- 
tend, as he always contended, that the way to de- 
feat Philip was not to wait for him. ' Let us send 
a royal army to supplant him in Brittany, and to 
possess ourselves there, and send also a strong 
navy to sea, and to lie with it upon the cape and 
such places as his ships bring his riches to, that 
they may set upon all that come. This we are 
able to do, and we shall undoubtedly have for- 
tunate success if we undertake it.'" 

It was such forcast as this speech indicates 
which had before prepared the nation to meet 
the invincible Armada when it came, and, by 
the co-operation of nature in her hurricane and 
storm, to sweep it to destruction. 

On the subject of monopolies, by which it was 
costomary to reward public services. Sir Walter 
made a profound sensation by declaring his will- 
ingness to resign his patent on the tin mines if 
there should be a general repeal of licenses. One 
who was present when his speech was delivered, 
remarked that "there was a great silence after 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 125 

it." The idea was adopted by Elizabeth, and 
she made her reign popular b)"^ the abolition of 
the most oppressive of these monopolies. Herein 
free trade, the glory and prosperity of England, 
began to dawn on the councils of tlie State. 

Raleigh had doubts as to the matter of his 
own monopoly in the tin mines being any disad- 
vantage on the whole, particularly because under 
his management the workmen were well paid, and 
regarded him with much affection. "Now I tell 
you," he said in the debate, "that before the 
granting of my patent, whether tin were but 
seventeen shillings and so up to fifty shillings a 
hundred, yet the poor workman never had but 
two shillings a week, finding himself. But since 
my patent, whosoever will work, be tin at what 
price sold, they have four shillings a week, truly 
paid. Notwithstanding, if all others be repealed, 
I will give my consent as freely to the canceling 
of this as any member of this House." The 
question of free trade in this country has been in 
debate from the beginning, and until lately it 
made a chief distinction between the leading 



126 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

political parties. The necessity of a vast revenue 
to pay the war debt has made large duties on 
imports inevitable, and the economical question 
is practically laid on the shelf. 

As lieutenant of Cornwall, Raleigh devoted 
himself to tlie welfare of the county, and espe- 
cially of the common people. He resisted success- 
fully an attempt of some politicians to get an old 
tax on the curing of fish restored; he also suc- 
ceeded in getting the tax upon tin considerably 
reduced. "Your ears and mouth have ever 
been open to hear and deliver our grievances," 
wrote Richard Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, 
''and your feet and hands ready to go and work 
their redress; and that not only as a magistrate 
of yourself, but also very often as a suitor and 
solicitor to others of tlie highest place." Un- 
popular as he was witli the politicians, and often- 
times exciting the ill will of the London populace, 
and especially the party of Essex, Raleigh was 
ndmired and loved by his own neighbors, and by 
the soldiers and sailors who served under him. 

While residing on his estates, he devoted much 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 127 

leisure time to antiquarian researclies, and to min- 
eralogical observations and studies. His mind 
was ever active, and his tongue and pen and 
hands were unceasingly active. 

He was a member of the antiquarian society 
formed under Archbishop Parker in 1572 He 
instituted a club of literary men in London, who 
held their meetings at a tavern called the Mermaid 
>n Friday Street. It was composed of such men 
as Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben Jonson 
Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and oth- 
ers, whose names are yet stars in the horizon of 
letters. "Many," says Fuller, "were the wit 
combats between Ben Jonson and Shakespeare 
I beheld them like a Spanish great galleon and an 
English man-ofwar. Master Jonson, like the 
former, was built far higher in learning, solid 
but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, like 
the latter, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing 
could turn with all tides, tack about, and take 
advantage of all winds by the quickness of his 
wit and invention." 



128 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



C}\^tQJ^ XIII. 

DEATH OF ELIZABETH — ACCESSION OF JAMES — HIS CHAR- 
ACTER AND WORKS — RALEIGH'S DISGRACE AT COURT — 
CHARGED WITH CONSPIRACY — IMPRISONMENT IN THE 
TOWER. 

OUEEN Elizabeth died on 24tb day of March, 
^^^^^ 1602, in the seventieth year of her age, and 
the forty-fifth of her reign. The death of Essex 
made a melancholy impression upon her mind, 
which she could not throw off, and which, to- 
gether with State cares — the discussions about 
the succession — affected her health and hastened 
her end. Having a good constitution and the 
most temperate habits, she disdained the use of 
medicine. Feeling that her days were numbered, 
she devoted herself to religious meditations and 
exercises. That she might enjoy these without so 
much molestation, she left Westminster, and re- 
paired to Richmond. She had the attendance 
and ministrations of the Archbishop of Canter- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 129 

bury, and to him she communicated her inmost 
feelings in regard to her relations to the eternal 
life, and to her successor on the throne. Vexed 
by the intrigues which she saw going on around 
her, she kept silence in regard to her decision in 
respect to the succession until the last hours of 
her life, when she declared to Lord Howard, of 
Effingham, her faithful friend, "that her throne 
had been the throne of kings, and that her kins- 
man, the King of Scots, should succeed her.'* 
After this she abandoned herself to prayer, that 
her mind might be, as she expressed it, "wholly 
fixed on God." Thus died the maiden queen, 
than whom no greater ruler ever occupied the 
throne of England. 

While before the death of Elizabeth the ques- 
tion of succession was under discussion, Raleigh 
and Cecil took opposite views. Raleigh was op- 
posed to the King of Scotland, and preferred the 
claims of Arabella Stuart, who was the fourth in 
descent from Henry VH. Her father, the Earl 
of Lenox, was the grandson of Margaret Tudor, 
who was the daughter of Henry VIL She was 



130 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

born in England, and was, like James, a Protest- 
ant. Elizabeth at first seemed to be friendly to 
Arabella, and instructed her embassador to pro- 
pose her marriage with James, and end the ques- 
tion; but afterward, for some reason unexplained, 
she turned against Arabella, and her opposition 
was intensified by that lady's projected marriage 
to William Seymour, afterward Duke of Somerset, 
who also was a descendant of Henry VII. When 
James was acknowledged to be the rightful heir 
to the crown, and came to London to establish 
his court, he regarded the friends of Arabella 
with jealousy, and was particularly evil-disposed 
toward Sir Walter Raleigh. He suspected him to 
be the author of certain pamphlets in opposition 
to his claims, and to have been concerned in tlie 
condemnation and execution of his friend, the 
unfortunate Earl of Essex. Cecil seems to have 
encouraged this disposition in James, and to stand 
altogether in his light as he approached the new 
monarch for the usual congratulations and wel- 
comes expected of courtiers. On their first inter- 
view, James, in the broadest Northern dialect, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 131 

returned his salutation with a j^oor grace, "On 
my soul, mon, I have heard Rawly of thee." 
He accejDted the presents of Raleigh ; but his 
timidity and love of peace was unpleasantly af- 
fected by Raleigh's bold and generous, but ill- 
advised, offer to support, at his own expense, a 
force of two thousand men to invade the territo- 
ries of Spain. This offer was the key-note, as we 
shall see, of a disastrous tenor of events, that 
brought the brave knight to an untimely and 
cruel end. 

James I of England and VI of Scotland was 
the son of the beautiful but unfortunate Mary, 
Queen of Scotland. His father was Henry Stuart, 
Lord Darnley, the cousin and husband of Mary, 
with whom she was, at the time of James's birth, 
at variance, having fixed her affection on the Earl 
of Bothwell. The assassination of Darnley fol- 
lowed, and Bothwell was suspected of being the 
instigator of the deed; nevertheless the impru- 
dent queen married him. The result was a re- 
bellion against the authority of the queen, which 
drove Bothwell into exile in Denmark, and Mary 



132 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

to imprisonment in the Castle of Loch Leven. 
She escaped; a battle ensued at Langside; her 
army was defeated; she fled to England; was 
kept a prisoner eighteen years by Elizabeth, at 
the end of which she was charged with conspir- 
acy against the crown ; was tried, condemned, 
and beheaded, February 8, 1587. 

James was crowned King of Scotland while 
yet an infant, and was kept in Stirling Castle, 
under the regency of the Earl of Mar. His tutor 
was the celebrated Buchanan, and he proved a 
diligent scholar in the learning of the times. He 
early imbibed inflated notions of royal supremacy; 
and by his arrogance he set his nobles against 
him, and a party took possession of his person, 
and confined him in Ruthven Castle. A counter 
revolution soon effected his liberation, and he was 
placed under the tutorship of his favorite, tlie 
unprincipled Earl of Arran. He showed little 
sympathy for his unhappy mother until her life 
was in danger, when he protested against the 
course Elizabeth was pursuing, and appealed to 
other courts of Europe for interference. At her 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 133 

death his nobles were ready to make war on the 
English nation, but the poverty of his resources 
prevented it. When Phih'p II threatened the inva- 
sion of England, his decided and ardent Protest- 
antism prompted him to forego personal animosity 
and to offer his assistance to repel the invasion. 

He was thirty-seven years of age when the 
death of Elizabeth in 1603 opened his way, by 
hereditary claim, to the crown of England. His 
progress to London was cheered by the popular 
acclamations, and he distributed the honors and 
titles at his disposal with the greatest profusion 
on Englishmen and Scotchmen. 

It is said that his timidity was such that, when 
he laid his sword on the shoulder of the new- 
made knight, he averted his eyes. He had also 
a habit of rolling his eyes after any person who 
was introduced to him, which was very embar- 
rassing to strangers. 

He held a conference at Hampton Court be- 
tween the Puritans and the divines of the English 
Church, in which he displayed a bitter hostility 
to innovations on the established order of the 



134 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Church, and to all kinds of non-conformity. He 
did not pursue the non-conformist with the sword 
and fagot, as in the previous reign; but he ex- 
pelled the Puritans from their offices in the 
Church, and in 1604 no less than three hundred 
pastors were silenced, imprisoned, or banished. 
As to the Catholics, he disappointed their expec- 
tations of royal favor; and their despair of gain- 
ing any thing from him or his Parliament led, in 
1605, to the Gunpowder Plot, the object of which 
was to annihilate at a blow the king and the 
Parliament. 

Catesby, Percy, and some other papists, de- 
vised the plan of storing gunpowder under the 
Parliament Hall, to be fired when the session 
should be opened, at which time the king and 
royal family would be present. More than twenty 
persons had the fatal secret; but it was kept 
until within ten days of the appointed time, when 
a Catliolic peer received a note advising him not 
to attend Parliament if he would avoid a calam- 
ity. This he carried to Lord Salisbury, Secretary 
of State, and the matter was at once made known 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 135 

to King James. Salisbury made liglit of it; but 
the timidity and sagacity of the king prompted 
him to order a thorough search of the vaults 
of the Hall, where both houses of Parliament 
assembled. At the door Guy Fawkes was found 
with matches in his pocket, and two hogsheads 
and thirty-six barrels of gunpowder were discov- 
ered. Guy FawkeS; on being put to torture, con- 
fessed the plot and all the persons concerned in it. 
These conspirators, with their attendants, to the 
number of eighty, concentrated at Warwickshire, 
and determined to defend themselves against ar- 
rest. Catesby and Percy were killed in the at- 
tack, and the residue were captured, tried, and 
executed. 

In the Calendar of the Church of England the 
5th of November is made a holiday; and the boys 
in England, and even in Boston, Massachusetts, 
celebrated it by carrying about an effigy of Guy 
Fawkes, singing, as they burnt it: 

" Rememher, remember 

The fiflh of November, 
Gunpowder treason and plot! 



136 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

We know no reason 
Why gunpowder treason 
Should ever be forgot. 

Hallo, boys ! Hurra !" 

The truly great and the only great deed which 
distinguishes the reign of James was the transla- 
tion of the original Scriptures into the English. 
At the Hampton conference, Avhich displayed the 
mtolerance of the king, the leader of the non- 
conformists was Dr. Reynolds, who has the honor 
of having suggested to the king the necessity of 
this translation. The king at once perceived its 
importance, and orders were issued the next year, 
1604, appointing fifty-four distinguished scholars 
to do the work. Seven of them, however, for 
some reason, failed to be actually employed in it. 
These were divided into six classes, to each of 
which was assigned a distinct portion of the 
Scriptures, to be translated by each member of 
the class, and to be revised by tlie whole class, 
and then sent to the other classes for examina- 
tion. These translations employed three years. 
The whole work was then sent to London, and 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 137 

was revised by a committee of one from each 
of the six classes, and finally criticised by Dr. 
Smith and Bishop Bilson. It was finally printed 
in 161 1. This is admitted to be the noblest of 
all translations of the Bible, scarcely inferior in 
spirit and letter to the inspired original. Re- 
cently a convention of learned men have been 
employed on a revision of King James's version, 
which is designed to correct what errors of trans- 
lation have been observed in it, without alteration 
of its general style. 

The ill will of James to Raleigh was soon 
revealed by an act of oppression in reference to 
his eldest son, Walter Raleigh, Jr. This young 
man was engaged to a wealthy heiress. Miss 
Basset, a descendant of the Plantagenets. This 
engagement was broke up by James, and tlie 
young lady compelled to marry Henry Howard. 
Her relative, Sir Robert Basset, opposed this 
transaction so vehemently that he was made an 
object of the royal displeasure, and his estate 
was confiscated, and he was compelled to flee 
the country to save his life. 



138 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

The Earl of Southampton, who was an accom- 
phce of Essex in his conspiracy against Elizabeth, 
was called from the Tower, and received with 
favor by the king, while Sir Walter was informed 
that his presence was not acceptable. This ma- 
neuver was attributed by Raleigh to the mali- 
cious influence of Cecil, and he vv^rote a letter to 
the king, in which he blamed Cecil for the exe- 
cution of Essex, and charged him with having 
brought about the execution of Queen Mary, 
against the intention and wishes of Elizabeth. 
This made Cecil his implacable enemy. Sir Wal- 
ter also joined with others to advise a limitation 
of the prerogatives of the king, and moderation 
in bestowing honors upon those favorites who 
were not natives of England. Tliis was an un- 
pardonable offense to one who was inflated with 
notions of kingly right and privilege — notions, 
which bequeathed to his son and successor, 
Charles I, brought him to the block. 

Before the accession of James, the Catholics 
had much dispute among themselves as to the 
succession. Much hope was entertained of Span- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 139 

ish influence with the prospective king, procuring 
for their Church great toleration and larger privi- 
leges, and agents were sent to the court of Scot- 
land for furthering these views. William Watson 
and Francis Clarke, Catholic priests, were the 
most prominent of these emissaries. James acted 
a double part in dealing with this question. To 
the pope he intimated that his accession to the 
throne of England would be an advantage to the 
Papists, while to the English court he expressed his 
dissatisfaction with the leniency and favor shown 
to them. Three weeks before his arrival in Eng- 
land a scheme for seizing his person was com- 
municated by Sir Griffin Markham, a Catholic 
gentleman, to his two .trustees, whom he had in- 
vited to dine with him at Berwood Park. He 
led them into the depths of the woods, and bound 
them by an oath not to reveal what he was about 
to relate. He then told them that a band of men 
had entered into a conspiracy to surprise the 
king at Greenwich, and to bring him to the 
Tower, which a party of them was to seize for 
that purpose. Among them were George Brooke, 



140 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

brother to Lord Cobham, Anthony Capley, a Cath- 
olic gentleman, and Lord Grey, of Wilton. Lord 
Grey was a Puritan, and hated Popery; but he 
hated the Scotch more, and, like the Catholics, 
longed for greater liberty in both civil and re- 
ligious matters than could be hoped for from the 
Scottish king. The original design of surprising 
the king at Greenwich was laid aside for a plan 
of seizing him on his departure from Han worth. 
It was much against Priest Watson's judgment 
that such a Protestant nobleman as Lord Grey 
should be mixed up with the scheme, and so he 
invented a plot within the plot to capture the 
king from Lord Grey and his troop, and to carry 
him to the Tower as if for safe keeping from his 
enemies, and by this means to secure the favor 
of the king to the Catholic cause. He first re- 
vealed his plan to Sir Edward Parham, who fell 
in with it at once. But in various ways the 
scheme of surprising the king was betrayed to 
tlie king's council, and they took immediate 
measures to guard the king's person. Capley 
was first arrested, and afterward the rest of the 



1 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 141 

conspirators. It does not appear that Cobham 
had any thing to do with this "treason of the 
priests." His brother had spoken of him to Wat- 
son, and of Sir Walter Raleigh, as discontented 
with the king, as well as Lord Grey. 

The project of Cobham was a different affair al- 
together. He had always been opposed to Essex 
and his views of the succession of the Scottish 
king. He favored at first the right of the Lady 
Arabella; but after his introduction to her per- 
sonally at the court of Elizabeth, for some reason, 
he changed his mind. "When I saw her," he 
remarked to Cecil, "I resolved never to hazard 
my estate for her." 

The correspondence of Cobham and Count 
d' Aremberg, Embassador of Archduke Albert, 
Sovereign of the Spanish Low Countries, is veiled 
in some obscurity; but it seems to have been 
respecting a treaty of peace with Spain, for wliich 
the influence of Cobham was solicited. In their 
intimacies, Cobham told Raleigh about a sum of 
money which he hoped to receive for negotiations 
in this matter. This being known by some means 



142 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

to the king's counselors, Cobham was suspected 
of some treasonable designs of his own, or com- 
plicity with the priests' conspiracy, and Sir Walter 
Raleigh was supposed to know something about it. 
One day Cecil met Raleigh at Windsor, and 
notified him that the lords of the privy council 
had something to inquire of him. 'He was asked 
what he knew about a correspondence of Cob- 
ham with Aremberg, the Austrian embassador, in 
respect to Spanish affairs, the object of which was 
to induce Raleigh to favor an alliance of England 
with Spain. Raleigh denied that Cobham liad 
any unwarrantable communication with himself 
or the Austrian minister, and referred the council 
to Laurencie, an Antwerp merchant, who had 
first introduced Cobham to Aremberg. Lord Cob- 
ham was afterward called before the council, and 
he entirely exonerated Raleigh from any improper 
transactions. After that, by an infamous artifice, 
a. letter of Raleigh addressed to Cecil was shown 
to Cobham, from some expressions of which he 
was led to conclude that Raleigh had betrayed 
him. Whereupon, as if possessed with a demoniac 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 143 

spirit of revenge he cried out, '*0 traitor! O vil- 
lain! now will I confess the whole truth." He 
then confessed that his intention was to go to 
Spain, and borrow six hundred thousand crowns 
of Philip III, to pay the troops to be employed in 
the conspiracy, and that he was to return by Jer- 
sey, where he' would meet Raleigh, and arrange 
for the disbursement of the money. He further 
deposed that it was by the instigation of Raleigh 
that he embarked in this plot. On being ques- 
tioned, he declared ignorance of any other plots, 
and contradicted his previous statements by stating 
that he feared that, on arriving at Jersey, Ra- 
leigh would deliver him and his money into the 
hands of the government. He was then dis- 
charged; but before he reached the stairway to 
depart, he was seized with remorse, and returned 
and retracted all that he had said against his 
friends. His deposition had been taken in writ- 
ing; but he refused to sign it. He was con- 
strained, however, to do so by being informed by 
the chief justice that it would be treated as con- 
tempt of court. Some weeks after he was newly 



144 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

examined, and distinctly retracted his accusation 
of Sir Walter. Cecil, who never fully declared 
his conviction of Sir Waller Raleigh's complicity 
with the conspirators, but seems quite willing to 
find proof of it against his former friend, and in 
his letters makes the most of incidental matters, 
which might look unfavorable, now ascribes this 
change in Cobham to a correspondence which 
Raleigh contrived to have with Cobham in the 
confinement in neighboring apartments of the 
Tower. This was brought to the attention of 
Cobham ; that he saw Sir John Paxton talking 
with Sir Walter at the window, and that, when 
he came to see him shortly after, he said to him, 
"I saw you with Sir Walter Raleigh. God for- 
give him ! He hath accused me, but I can not 
accuse him." Then Sir John said, ''He doth 
say the like of you : that you have accused him, 
but he can not accuse you." Cobham was mis- 
taken about Raleigh's accusing him ; it was his 
own brother Brooke tliat made the first disclos- 
ures of the plot. 

Upon his first entrance into the Tower, Sir 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 145 

Walter Raleigh gave way to desponding thoughts. 
He knew he was innocent; but he had read his- 
tory so as to convince him that the slightest 
things are taken for proofs of treason, and the 
innocent are condemned with the guilty. He 
knew the law was such that, if sentence was pro- 
nounced against him, it would result in the con- 
fiscation of his estate, and leave his wife and 
family destitute. Dwelling upon these consid- 
erations, he was so wrought up tliat he deter- 
mined not to be brought to trial by sacrificing 
his life. On the 20th of July, 1603, while Lord 
Cecil was in the Tower examining the prisoners, 
he stabbed himself near the right breast. Cecil 
writes about it: ''Although lodged and attended 
as well as in his own house, yet one afternoon, 
while divers of us were in the Tower examining 
these prisoners. Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to 
have murdered himself. Whereof, when we were 
advertised, we came to him, and found him in 
some agony, seeming to be unable to endure his 
misfortune, and protesting his innocency with 

carelessness of life. In that humor he had 

10 



146 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

wounded himself under the right pap, but no way 
mortally ; being in truth rather a cut than a stab. " 
The following letter, lately found among State 
papers, and published in Edwards's second vol- 
ume' reveals the feeling which moved him to this 
rash act: 

TO LADY RALEIGH. 

* ' Receive from thy unfortunate husband these, 
his last lines; these, the last words thou shalt ever 
receive from him. That I can live to see thee 
and my child more ! — I can not. I have desired 
God and disputed with my reason, but nature and 
compassion hath the victory. That I can live to 
think how you are both left a spoil to my ene- 
mies, and that my name shall be a dishonor to 
my child, — I can not. I can not endure the 
memory thereof. Unfortunate woman, unfortu- 
nate child, comfort yourselves; trust God, and be 
contented in your poor estate. I would have bet- 
tered it, if I had enjoyed a few years. 

"Thou art a young woman, and forbear not 
to marry again ; thou art no more mine, nor 1 
thine. To witness that thou didst love me once. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 147 

take care that thou marry not to please sense, 
but to avoid poverty, and to preserve thy child. 
That thou didst also love me living, witness it to 
others; to my poor daughter, to whom I have 
given nothing; for his sake, who will be cruel to 
himself to preserve thee. Be charitable to her, and 
teach thy son to love her for his father's sake. 

''For myself, I am left of all men that have 
done good to many. All my good turns forgotten ; 
all my errors revived and expounded to all ex- 
tremity of ill. All my services, hazards, and 
expenses for my country — plantings, discoveries, 
fights, councils, and whatsoever else — malice hath 
now covered over. I am now made an enemy 
and traitor by the word of an unworthy man. 
He hath proclaimed me to be a partaker of his 
vain imaginations, notwithstanding the whole 
course of my life hath approved the contrary, as 
my death shall approve it. Woe, woe, woe be 
unto him by whose falsehood we are lost ! He 
hath separated us asunder. He hath slain my 
honor, my fortune. He hath robbed thee of thy 
husband, thy child of his father, and me of you 



148 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

both. O God, thou dost know my wrongs. 
Know then, thou my wife and child; know then, 
thou my lord and king, — that I ever thought 
them too honest to betray, and too good to con- 
spire against. 

*'But, my wife, forgive them all, as I do. 
Live humble, for thou hast but a time also. God 
forgive my Lord Harry ! for he was my heavy 
enemy. And for my Lord Cecil, I thought 
he would never forsake me in extremity. I 
would not have done it him, God knows. But 
do not thou know it; for he must be master of 
thy child, and may have compassion of him. Be 
not dismayed that I died in despair of God's 
mercies. Strive not to dispute it. But assure 
thyself that God hath not left me, nor Satan 
tempted me. Hope and Despair live not together. 
I know it is forbidden to destroy ourselves; but 
trust it is forbidden in this sort, that we destroy 
not ourselves despairing of God's mercy. The 
mercy of God is immeasurable; the cogitations 
of men comprehend it not. 

" In the Lord I have ever trusted, and I know 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 149 

that my Redeemer liveth. Far is it from me to 
be tempted with Satan. I am only tempted with 
sorrow, whose sharp teeth devour my heart. O 
God, thou art goodness itself. Thou canst not 
but be good to me. O God, thou art mercy 
itself. Thou canst not but be merciful to me. 

*'For my estate, [it] is conveyed to feoffees — • 
to your cousin Brett and others. I have but a 
bare estate for a short life. My plate is at gage 
in Lombard Street; my debts are many. To 
Peter Vanlove, some ^600. To Atropus as 
much, but Compton is to pay ;^300 of it. To 
Michael Hext, ;£"ioo. To George Carew, ;£"ioo. 
To Nicholas Sanderson, p^ioo. To John Fitz- 
james, ;£ioo. To Master Waddon, ^100. To 
a poor man, one Hawkes, for horses, £^0. To 
a poor man called Hunt, ;^2o. Take first care 
of those, for God's sake. To a brewer at Wey- 
mouth, and a baker, for Lord Cecil's ship and 
mine, I think some j£2>o. Jolin Reynolds know- 
eth it. And let that poor man have his true part 
of my return from Virginia; and let the poor 
men's wages be paid with the goods, for the 



150 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Lord's sake. Oh, what will my poor servants 
think, at their return, when they hear I am ac- 
cused to be Spanish, who sent them — at my great 
charge — to plant and discover upon his territory, 

*'0h, intolerable infamy! O God, I can not 
resist these thoughts ! I can not live to think 
how I am derided, to think of the expectation 
of my enemies, the scorns I shall receive, the 
cruel words of lawyers, the infamous taunts and 
despites, to be made a wonder and a spectacle ! 
O Death, hasten thou unto me, that thou mayest 
destroy the memory of these, and lay me up in 
dark forgetfulness ! O Death, destroy my mem- 
ory, which is my tormentor! my thoughts and my 
life can not dwell in one body. But do thou for- 
get me, poor wife, that thou mayest live to bring 
up my poor child. 

*'I recommend unto you my poor brotlier 
Gilbert. The lease of Tandridge is his, and none 
of mine. Let him have it, for God's cause. He 
knows what is due to me upon it. And be good 
to Kemis; for he is a perfect honest man, and 
hath much wrong for my sake. For the rest, I 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 151 

commend me to them, and them to God. And 
the Lord knows my sorrows to part from thee and 
my poor child. But part I must, by enemies and 
injuries ; part with shame, and triumph of my 
detractors. And therefore be contented with this 
work of God, and forget me in all things but 
thine own honor and the love of mine. 

"I bless my poor child; and let him know 
his father was no traitor. Be bold of my inno- 
cence ; for God, to whom I offer life and soul, 
knows it. And whosoever thou choose again after 
me, let him but be thy politique husband. But 
let my son be thy beloved, for he is part of me, 
and I live in him ; and the difference is but in 
the number, and not in the kind. And the Lord 
forever keep thee and them, and give thee com- 
fort in both worlds!" 

After Raleigh's recovery from his wound, he, 
like the other prisoners, was subjected to private 
examinations ; but through all he confesses no 
guilt, and discloses nothing which betrays con- 
nection with the conspiracy. On the contrary, 



152 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Lord Grey confessed that he ''had a part, a 
party, and confederates," and that their object 
was to take the king and his court by surprise. 
Brooke and Cobham made similar acknowledg- 
ments, and threw themsleves on the mercy of the 
king. Raleigh wrote an eloquent letter to the 
Earls of Nottingham, Suffolk, and Devonshire, 
and Lord Cecil, protesting his innocence, and 
showing reasons why he ought not to be con- 
founded with the guilty. He wrote also suppli- 
cating letters to the king. He managed to hold 
a communication with Cobham, entreating him to 
exonerate him. He paid money to an attendant 
in the prison to throw an apple into Cobham's 
apartment, containing a letter to this effect. The 
answer was not altogether satisfactory. He then 
sent another letter in the same way, requesting 
Cobham at least to declare his innocence at the 
approaching trial. To this a reply came, plainly 
and solemnly declaring that Raleigh was innocent 
of all the charges. 

As it happened that the plague was raging at 
London, and people were dying every-where — 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 153 

except, strange to relate, in the Tower — it became 
necessary to remove the prisoners, for trial, to 
Winchester Castle. Thither, in September, Ra- 
leigh was conveyed in his own coach, under the 
direction of Sir William Wade, who was, accord- 
ing to his own account, in constant alarm from 
the manifestation of popular ill-will toward his 
illustrious prisoners. Mud and stones, and even 
tobacco-pipes, were thrown into the coach. "He 
that had seen it," says Wade, ''would not think 
there had been any sickness in London. We 
took the best order we could in setting watches 
through all the streets, both in London and the 
suburbs. If one hair-brain fellow among so great 
multitudes had begun to set on him, as they were 
very ready to do, no night-watch or means could 
have prevailed, the fury and tumult of the people 
were so great." Raleigh seems never to have 
been popular with the masses, though very much 
beloved by his attendants, and by soldiers and 
sailors in his service. The wrath of the populace, 
in this instance, was destined by the events of the 
trial to be converted into admiration and pity. 



154 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



Cl^kptef XIV. 

THE TRIAL OF RALEIGH AND THE CONSPIRATORS — CONDUCT 
OF SIR EDWARD COKE— THE SENTENCE OF THE PRISONERS. 

'T"^HE plague, which made it necessary for the 
-*- court to leave London, continued to rage 
until thirty thousand of the population perished. 
The king and his council repaired to Welton. A 
court of king's bench was prepared by the sheriff 
of Hants, at Wolverley Castle, the old episcopal 
Palace of Winchester. The trial of Sir Walter 
Raleigh commenced on the 17th of November, 
O. S. Cecil, Wade, and Henry Howard were 
made judges by special commission. With them 
were Lord Thomas Howard, Charles Blount, 
Edward Walton, Sir John Stanhope, Popham, 
lord chief- justice, Anderson, chief -justice of the 
common pleas, and two judges, Warburton and 
Gandy. Sir Edward Coke, attorney-general, was 
assisted by Sergeant Hale. The jury consisted of 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 155 

knights, squires, and gentlemen, all strangers to 
Raleigh. Wlien the indictment was read, Sir 
Walter jDleaded, "Not guilty;" and when asked 
if he had any objection to the jury, he answered, 
''I know none of them, but think them all honest 
and Christian men. I know my own innocence, 
and, therefore, will challenge none. All are in- 
different to me. Only this I desire : sickness 
hath of late weakened me, and my memory is al- 
ways bad; the points in the indictment are many, 
and perhaps in the evidence more Avill be urged. 
I beseech you, therefore, my lords, let me answer 
the points severally as they are delivered, for I 
shall not carry them all in my mind to the end." 

Coke objected: "The king's evidence ought 
not to be broken or dismembered, whereby it 
might lose much of its grace and vigor." This 
objection was overruled in part. 

The indictment substantially was that he had 
conspired against the government of the king; 
had sought to excite sedition, to introduce the 
Papal religion, and to engage foreign nations to 
invade the kingdom. In addition to this con- 



156 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

spiracy, he was charged with having pubHshed a 
book against the title of James, and had incited 
Lady Arabella Stuart to write to the King of 
Spain, to the Archduke of Austria, and to the 
Duke of Saxony to advance her title. Besides 
this he was implicated in transactions between 
Cobham and Aremburg, Embassador of Aus- 
tria, to obtain five or six hundred thousand 
crowns from Philip III of Spain to aid the trea- 
son, of which Raleigh should have the disburse- 
ment of ten thousand crowns. 

The opening of the case was made by Ser- 
geant Hale, who displayed as much ability to 
manage such a case as could be expected from a 
small lawyer who could affirm, "As for the Lady 
Arabella, she, upon my conscience, hath no more 
title to the crown than I have, which before God 
I utterly renounce." As James himself could not 
trace a more direct relation to the royal line than 
Lady Arabella, Raleigh was seen to smile at the 
blundering witticism of the king's sergeant-at-law. 
Sir Edward Coke soon followed in turn, and 
made a display of mingled acuteness, eloquence, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 157 

effrontery, and malignity, which has left a blot 
upon his character. He declared that as no re- 
sort had been made to torture to extract the truth 
from the conspirators, so he should bring nothing 
but plain and positive proof against the prisoner. 
He analyzed the crime charged in the following 
pedantic manner: ''Unto all great mischiefs, 
there be ever three inseparable incidents. The 
first is invitation; the second, siipportation ; the 
third, defense. Within these three fall all Sir 
Walter Raleigh's treasons. For his is the treason 
of ^tlie main f the others were ^the bye.^ The 
treason of '■the buy^ was that Lord Grey, Brooke, 
Markham, and the others should hastily surprise 
the king's court. This was a rebellion in the 
heart of the realm ; yea, in the heart of the heart, 
that is, the court. They intended to break open 
the doors with muskets, and so of a sovereign 
make a subject. Having him, they meant to 
carry him to the ToAver, and to keep him there 
until they had extorted three things from him — 
first, their own pardon; secondly, toleration for 
the Romish superstition; and, thirdly, the re- 



158 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

moval of certain privy councilors. This," he 
concluded, "was the treason of 'the buy.'" 

Raleigh interposed, and addressed the jury : 
''I pray you, gentlemen of the jury, to remember 
that I am not charged with the 'buy,' which was 
the treason of the priests." 

"You are not," replied Coke; "but your 
lordships will see that all these treasons, though 
they consisted of several points, closed in to- 
gether, like Samson's foxes, which were joined 
in the tails, though the heads were severed." 

He then went on reciting cases of treason 
in other reigns, and showing, too, or rather 
trying to show, that only one witness was nec- 
essary to make out a case of treason. He 
finally comes to the case. "Now, my masters 
of the jury, I come to your charge. Treason 
is of four kinds — treason in corde (in the heart), 
which is the root of the tree ; treason in ore 
(in the mouth), which is the bud; treason in mantt 
(in the hand), which is the blossom; and treason 
in consiirnmatione (in consummation), which is the 
fruit. In this case you shall find the three first 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 159 

of these, these traitors being prevented before the 
consummation of their mischiefs. But, though 
prevented, they are still traitors in corde, in ore, 
et in vianu.'' And so he went on quoting Latin 
phrases, and charging the conspirators with the 
purpose not only to take the life of the king, but 
to destroy his posterity. Then turning to Ra- 
leigh, he said, "But to whom. Sir Walter, did 
you bear malice ? To the royal children ?" 

"Master attorney," said Raleigh, " I pray you, 
to whom or to what end speak you all this? I 
protest I do not understand what a word of this 
means, except it be to tell the news. What is 
the treason of Markham and the priests to me ?" 

Coke replied, "I will, then, come close to 
you. I will prove you to be the most notorious 
traitor that ever came to the bar. They, indeed, 
are upon 'the mainf but you followed them of 
'the bye' in imitation. I will charge you with 
the words." 

"Your words can not condemn me," responded 
Raleigh. ' ' My innocence is my defense. Prove 
against me any one thing of the many that you 



i6o Sir Walter Raleigh. 

have spoken, and I will confess all the indict- 
ment, and that I am the most horrible traitor that 
ever lived, and worthy to be crucified with a 
thousand torments." 

''Nay," said Coke, ''I will prove all. Thou 
art a monster; thou hast an English face, but a 
Spanish heart. You would have stirred England 
and Scotland both. You incited the Lord Cob- 
ham, as soon as Count Aremberg came into Eng- 
land, to go to him. The night he went you 
supped with Lord Cobham, and he brought you 
after supper to Dunbar House; and then, the same 
night, by a back way, went with La Renzi to 
Count Aremberg, and got from him a promise 
of the money. After this it was arranged that 
Lord Cobham should go to Spain, and return by 
Jersey." So he went on simply affirming the in- 
dictment. 

Raleigh cried out, ' ' Let me answer ; it con- 
cerns my life!" 

Coke: "Thou shalt not." 

Lord Chief Justice Popham then interposed., 
saying: "Sir Walter Raleigh, master attorney is 



Pioneer of American Colonization. i6i 

yet but in general. But when the king's counsel 
hath given the whole evidence, you shall answer 
to every particular." 

After this Coke went on stating that Cobham 
invented the scheme, but Raleigh was relied 
upon, both as a "politician and landsman," to 
manage and execute the plot; and that he con- 
trived that Cobham should be the only witness 
against him, believing that he could not be con- 
victed of treason by only one witness. He re- 
lated several matters in which Cobham was con- 
cerned. 

Raleigh replied: "What is this to me? I do 
not hear yet that you have spoken one word 
against me. If my Lord Cobham be a traitor, 
what is that to me?" 

Coke retorted: "All that he did was by thy 
instigation, thou viper ! for I thou thee, thou 
traitor! I will prove thee the rankest traitor in 
all England." 

Raleigh replied that he might call him a traitor, 
but that was no proof of it. The lord chief- 
justice then charged tliem both to "be patient." 

II 



1 62 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Coke then proceeded to give his proofs. It 
was simply a record of the examinations of Cob- 
ham, which was read by the clerk of the crown. 
Raleigh requested to look at it. Having done 
so, he addressed the jury in his defense. He 
explained that he was aware that Cobham, 
through La Renzi, had communications with 
Count Aremberg, and he informed Cecil of it, and 
that La Renzi should be called to account for it; 
but Cecil thought it not politic to do so, as- the 
embassador might be offended; and that this 
letter was shown to Cobham, who in a sudden 
rage denounced him as a traitor, and then re- 
pented of it ''ere he came to the stairs' foot, and 
acknowledged he had done wrong." He then 
turned to the attorney-general, and said, in lan- 
guage that thrilled every loyal and honest English- 
man and Scotchman in the assembly : 

''Master attorney, whether to favor or to disable 
my Lord Cobham, you speak as you will of him ; 
yet he is not such a traitor as you make of him. 
He hath dispositions of such violence, which his 
best friends could never temper. But it is very 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 163 

strange that I, at this time, should be thought to 
plot with the Lord Cobham, knowing him a man 
that hath neither love or following; and myself, 
at this time, having resigned a place of my best 
command in an office I had in Cornwall, I was 
not so bare of sense but I saw that, if ever this 
state was strong, it was now that we have the 
kingdom of Scotland united, whence we were 
wont to fear all our troubles; Ireland quieted, 
where our forces were wont to be divided; Den- 
mark assured, whom before we were always wont 
to have in jealousy; the Low Countries our near- 
est neighbor. And, instead of a lady whom time 
had surprised, we had now an active king, who 
would be present at his own business. For me 
at this time to make myself a Robin Hood, a 
Wat Tyler, a Kett, or a Jack Cade ! I was not 
so mad. I knew the state of Spain well; his 
weakness, his poorness, his humbleness at this 
time. I knew that six times we had repulsed his 
forces: thrice in Ireland; thrice at sea, — once 
upon our coast, twice upon his own. Thrice had 
I served against him myself at sea, wherein for 



164 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

my country's sake I had expended of my own 
property forty thousand marks. I knew that 
where beforetimes he was wont to have forty 
great sails, at the least, in his ports, now he hath 
not past six or seven. And for sending to his 
Indies he was driven to have strange vessels, a 
thing contrary to the institutions of his ancestors, 
who straitly forbade that, even in case of neces- 
sity, they should make their necessity known to 
strangers. I knew that, of twenty-five millions 
which he had from his Indies, he had scarce any 
left. Nay, I knew his poorness to be such at this 
time as [that] the Jesuits, his imps, begged at his 
church doors. [I knew] his pride so abated that, 
notwithstanding his former higli terms, he was 
glad to congratulate his majesty, and send unto 
him. Whoso knew what great assurances were 
required from other states, for smaller sums, would 
not think he would so freely disburse to my Lord 
Cobham six hundred thousand crowns ! And, if 
I had minded to set my Lord Cobham a-work in 
such a case, I would have given him some instruc- 
tions how to persuade the king. For I knew 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 165 

Cobbam no siicb minion tbat could persuade a 
king tbat was in want to disburse so great a sum, 
witbout great reason, and some assurance for bis 
money. I knew the Queen of England lent not 
ber money to tbe States, witbout sbe bad Flusb- 
ing, Brill, and otber towns, in assurance for it. 
Sbe lent not money to tbe King of France, witb- 
out sbe bad Newbaven for it. Nay, ber own 
subjects, tbe mercbants of London, did not lend 
ber money, witbout tbey bad ber lands in pawn 
for it. And to sbow tbat I am not 'Spanisb' — 
as you term me — at tbis time I bad writ a treatise 
to the king's majesty of the present state of Spain, 
and reasons against tbe peace. 

''For my inwardness witb tbe Lord Cobbam, 
it was only in matters of private estate, wherein, 
be communicating often witb me, I lent bim my 
best advice. At tbis time I was to deal witb tbe 
duke for bim, to procure a fee farm from tbe 
king; for wbicb purpose I bad about me in my 
bosom, wben I was first examined, four thousand 
pounds wortb of bis jewels. He being a baron 
of tbis realm, upon whom all tbe honors of bis 



1 66 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

house rested; his possessions great; having goodly 
houses, worth at least five thousand pounds a 
year revenue; his plate and furniture as rich as 
was any man of his rank, — is it likely I could so 
easily incite a man of these fortunes to enter into 
so gross treasons ? And for further argument that 
he was not desperate in estate nor poor in purse, 
he offered four thousand pounds for this fee farm. 
Not three days before his apprehending he had 
bestowed one hundred and fifty pounds in books, 
which he sent to his house at Canterbury. He 
gave [too] three hundred pounds for a cabinet, 
which he offered to you, master attorney, for the 
drawing of his book. He had the value of thirty- 
five hundred pounds in one piece of [plate], besides 
one ring worth five hundred pounds; and besides 
many others jewels, of price. Think now if it 
be likely that this man, upon an idle humor, 
would venture all this. As for my knowing that 
he had conspired all these things with Spain, for 
Arabella, and against the king, I protest before 
Almighty God I am as clear as whosoever here 
is freest." 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 167 

The next thing brought forward by the attorney- 
general was the document which Cobham refused 
to sign at first, but was afterward constrained to 
do so by the Chief-Justice Popham saying that he. 
would be compelled to do so. 

The chief-justice then, contrary to all the 
rules of courts of justice, volunteers his testimony. 
"I came to the Lord Cobham, and told him he 
ought to subscribe, which presently after the Lord 
Cobham did. And he said of Sir Walter Raleigh 
in the doing of it, ' That wretch ! That traitor 
Raleigh!' And surely the countenance and ac- 
tion of my Lord Cobham much satisfied me 
that what he had confessed was true, and 
that he surely tliought that Sir Walter had be- 
trayed him." 

What a procedure for a judge upon the bench 
trying the case ! The foreman of the jury asked 
for the time of Lord Cobham's accusation. Lord 
Cecil then, half apologizing for testifying in Ra- 
leigh's favor, answered that Raleigh was examined 
at the outset of the inquiry, and that he testified 
nothing against Lord Cobham whatsoever. 



1 68 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Cobham was deceived, and was so enraged 
against Raleigh that he accused him of treason. 

Coke then repHed at length to Raleigh's speech, 
after which Raleigh begged to have his accuser 
brought face to face to him, and declared that to 
rely on one witness in such a case was contrary 
to the law of God and the justice of mankind. 

Both the justices decided that it was according 
to law and usage, and they denied his right to 
demand tlie presence of his accuser. 

The matter of Raleigh's receiving a part of the 
money expected of the King of Spain was then 
brought in. To this Raleigh made the following 
reply : 

" Mr. Attorney, you have seemed to say much, 
but in truth nothing that applies to me. You con- 
clude that I must know of the plot because I was 
to have a part of the money. But all you have 
said concerning this I have made void by distin- 
guishing the time when it was spoken. It is true, 
my Lord Cobham had speech with me about the 
money, and made me an offer. But how? and 
when? Voluntarily; one day at dinner, some- 



' Pioneer of American Colonization. 169 

time before Count Aremberg's coming over. For 
he and I, being at bis own board, arguing and 
speaking violently — he for the peace, I against 
the i^eace, the Lord Cobham told me thai 
when Count Aremberg came, he would give such 
strong arguments for the peace as would satisfy 
any man. And withal he told, as his fashion is 
to utter things easily, what great sums of money 
would be given to some councilors for making 
the peace, and he named my Lord Cecil and the 
Earl of Mar. I answering, bade him make no 
such offer to them, for they would hate him if he 
did offer it. Now, if often thus my Lord Cob- 
ham changed his mind as to the use to be made 
of the money, and joining with Lord Grey and 
the others, had any such treasonable intent as 
is alleged, what is that to i?ie? They must answer 
it, not L The offer of the money to me is 
nothing, for it was made before Count Arem- 
berg's coming. The offer made to others was 
afterward." 

Lord Henry Howard said: "Allege me any 
ground or cause why you gave ear to my Lord 



170 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Cobham on receiving of pensions in matters you 
had not to deal in." 

Raleigh replied: "Could I stop my Lord 
Cobham's mouth ?" 

Cecil then appealed to the judges to say 
whether the accuser of Raleigh should not be 
brought face to face with accused. 

Justices Popham and Gowdy denied the right 
of the prisoner to claim this by law. 

The examinations of Capley and of Raleigh 
were then read, in which Raleigh was charged 
with saying that "the way to invade England 
was to begin with stirs in Scotland." 

Raleigh replied: "I think so still. I have 
spoken it often to divers of the lords by way of 
discourse and my opinion." 

Coke then said: "Now let us come to the 
words of destroying of 'the king and his cubs.'" 

Raleigh exclaimed : " Oh, barbarous ! If they, 
like unnatural villains, spoke such words, shall I 
be charged with them ? I will not hear it. I 
was never false to the crown of England. I have 
spent forty thousand pounds of mine own against 



Pioneer of Ametitcan Colonization. 171 

the Spanish faction for the good of my country. 
Do you bring the words of those hellish spiders 
Clarke, Watson, and others against me ?" 

Coke retorted: "Thou hast a Spanish heart, 
and thyself art a spider of hell. For thou con- 
fessest the king to be a most sweet and gracious 
prince, and yet thou hast conspired against him." 

The only proof of this allegation was that 
Brooke stated in his examination that he thought 
that the project of "the destruction of the king 
was infused into his brother's head by Raleigh." 

"If this may be," exclaimed Raleigh, indig- 
nantly protesting against such evidence, "you 
will have any man's life in a week !" 

It was then read from Cobham's examination : 
"I had from Raleigh a book written against the 
title of the king. I gave it to. my brother. Ra- 
leigh said, 'It was foolishly written.'" 

Raleigh replied to this: "I never gave it him. 
He took it off my table. For I remember a little 
before that time I received a challenge from Sir 
Amias Preston, and for that I did resolve to an- 
swer it. I resolved to leave my estate setded, 



172 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

and, therefor, laid out all my loose papers, 
amongst which was this book." 

The point which was then made was whether 
this book was given to Cobham before or after 
the Lord Cobham was known to be discontented 
with King James. As to the matter of it. Lord 
Henry Howard testified that Cobham had con- 
tradicted himself on this subject, having first said 
it was against the king's title, and afterward said 
that "it contained nothing against the king's 
title, and that he had it not from Sir Walter 
Raleigh, but took it from his table when he was 
sleeping." 

Various other matters were now introduced 
and discussed; but as they had no vital bearing 
upon the case, it would be tedious to describe 
them. 

Raleigh repeatedly insisted that the only im- 
portant witness against him should be produced in 
court. The final dispute about this is thus de- 
scribed by Edwards : 

Coke. '' He is a party, and may not come. 
The law is against it." 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 173 

Raleigh. '' It is a toy to tell me of law. I defy 
law. I stand on the facts." 

Lord Cecil. ''\ am afraid my plain speech, 
who am inferior to my lords here in presence, 
will make the world think I delight to hear my- 
self talk. My affection to you, Sir Walter Raleigh, 
has not extinguished, but slacked, in regard of 
your defects. You know the reason, to which 
your mind doth not contest, that my Lord Cob- 
ham can not be brought." 

Raleigh. " He may be, my lord." 
Zord Cecil " But dare you challenge it?" 
Raleigh. "Now." 

Attorney General Coke. "You say that my Lord 
Cobham, your main accuser, must come to accuse 
you. You say that he hath retracted. What the 
validity of all this is, is merely left to the jury. 
Let me only ask you this : If my Lord Cobham 
will say that you are the only instigator of him to 
proceed in the treason, dare you put yourself on 

this?" 

Raleigh. "If he will speak it before God and 
the king, that even I knew of Arabella's matter 



174 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

for the money out of Spain, or of the 'surprising 
treason,' I put myself on it. God's will and the 
king's be done with me." 

Lord Henry Howard. ' ' How if he speak things 
equivalent to what you have said?" 

Raleigh. "Yes, in a main point." 

Loi'd Cecil. *'If he say you have been the 
instigator of him to deal with the Spanish 
king, had not the council cause to draw you 
hither ?" 

Raleigh. "I put myself on it." 

Lord Cecil. ''Then call to God, Sir Walter, 
and prepare yourself; for I do verily believe my 
lord will prove this. Excepting your fault, 1 am 
your friend. The great passion in you, and the 
attorney's zeal for the king's service, make me 
speak thus." 

Raleigh. "Whosoever is the workman, it is 
reason he should give account of his work to the 
work -master. But let it be proved that he ac- 
quainted me with any of his conference with 
Aremberg." 

Lord Cecil. "That follows not. If I set you a 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 175 

work, and you give me no account, am I there- 
fore innocent ?" 

Coke. ''For Arabella, I have said that she was 
never acquainted with the matter. Now, that Ra- 
leigh hath had conference in all these treasons it 
is manifest. The jury hath heard out the matter. 
There is one Dyer, a pilot, that, being in Lisbon, 
met with a Portuguese gentleman, who asked him 
if the King of England was crowned yet. To 
whom he answered, 'I think not yet, but he 
shall be shortly.' 'Nay,' saith the Portuguese, 
' that shall never be, for his throat will be cut by 
Don Raleigh and Don Cobham, before he be 
crowned.' " 

Hereupon Dyer was called. He deposed upon 
oath to the hearing of these words in a conversa- 
tion at Lisbon. 

Raleigh. "What inference upon that?" 
Coke. "That your treason hath wings." 
Raleigh. "If Cobham did practice with Arem- 
berg, how could it not be known in Spain ? Why 
did they name the Duke of Bucks with Jack 
Straw? It was to countenance his treasons." 



176 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

And so the trial went on. At length Cobham's 
letter to the lords was read to the court. He 
begins by saying that he read two letters from 
Raleigh in the Tower. To the first he made 
no answer; to the second he replied out of 
pity to his wife and cliildren, and because he 
was put in hope of the proceedings against him 
being staid. "With the like truth," he goes 
on to say, "I will proceed to tell you my deal- 
ings toward Count Aremberg to get him (that is, 
Raleigh,) a pension of one thousand jive hu7idred 
pounds per anfium for intelligence, and he would 
always tell and advertise what was intended 
against Spain, for the Low Countries, or with 
France. And coming from Greenwich one night, 
he acquainted me with what was agreed betwixt 
the king and the Low Countrymen, that I should 
impart it to Count Aremberg. But upon this mo- 
tion for one thousand five hundred pounds per annwn 
for intelligence, I never dealt with Count Arem- 
berg. Now, as by this may appear to your lord- 
ships, he hath been the original cause of my ruin. 
For, but by his instigation, I had never dealt 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 177 



w 



ith Count Aremberg. And so he hath been 
the only cause of my discontentment; I never 
coming from the Count, but still he filled and 
possessed me with new causes of discontentment. 
To conclude: in his last letter he advised me 
that I should not be overtaken by confessing to 
any particular, for the king wonld better allow 
my constant denial than my after-appealing. For 
my after-accusing would but add matter to my 
former offense." 

Several times the reading of this confession 
and accusation was interrupted by taunting ex- 
clamations, such: ''Is not this a Spanish heart 
in an English body !" At the close he demanded 
of Raleigh: "What say you now to the letter?" 

''I say," said Raleigh, ''that Cobham is a 
base, dishonorable, poor soul." 

"Is he base?" said Coke. "I return it into 
their own throat in his behalf. But for them he 
had been a good subject." 

The best report of the trial puts the following 
in the mouth of Sir Walter : 

"I jDray you, hear me in a word, and you 
12 



178 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

shall see how many souls this Cobham hath. And 
the king shall judge by one death which of us is 
the perfidious man. Before my Lord Cobham's 
coming from the Tower, I was advised by some 
of my friends to get a confession from him. 
Therefor I wrote to him thus : ' You or I must 
go to trial. If I first, then your accusation is 
the only evidence against me.' It was not ill of 
me to beg him to say the truth. But his first 
letter was not to my contenting. I writ a second, 
and then he writ me a very good letter. But I 
sent him word I feared Mr. Lieutenant of the 
Tower might be blamed if it was discovered that 
letters had passed. Though I protest, Sir George 
Harvey is not to blame for what passed. No 
keeper in the world could so provide but it might 
happen. So I sent him the letter again with 
this : ' It is likely now that you shall be the first 
tried.' But the Lord Cobham sent to me again : 
'It is not unfit you had such a letter.' And 
here you may see it, and, I pray you, read it." 
And with this he presented the letter. 

Lord Cecil, as being familiar with Cobham's 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 179 

handwriting, was requested by Raleigh to read 
the letter aloud. 

"Now that the arraignment draws near, not 
knowing which shall be first, I or you, to clear 
my conscience, satisfy the world, and free my- 
self from the cry of your blood, I protest upon 
my soul and before God and his angels, I never 
had conference with you in any treason, nor 
was ever moved by you to the things I heretofore 
accused you of. And for any thing I know, you 
are as innocent and as clear of any treason 
against the king as is any subject living. There- 
fore I wash my hands, and pronounce '■Purus sum 
a sanguine hujus.^ And so God deal witli me, 
and have mercy on my soul, as this is true." 

This being read. Sir Walter rose, and said : 

"Now, my masters, you have heard both. 
That shewed against me is but a voluntary con- 
fession; this is under oath and the deepest pro- 
testations a Christian can make. Therefore be- 
lieve which of these hath the most force." 

There the case ended. The jury retired as 
usual to make up their verdict. To the surprise 



i8o Sir Walter Raleigh. 

of every body, they returned in a quarter of an 
hour, and brought in a verdict of "guilty of 
treason." It was evident that they had acted 
from prejudice rather than judgment, for the case 
was to every reflecting and candid mind one of 
no ordinary difficulty. Sir Walter had not been 
wholly without complicity in Cobham's transac- 
tions; but he had not been guilty of treason, nor 
even of misprision of treason. Coke himself was 
surprised by the verdict. He had walked out 
into the garden when the jury retired, and when 
the verdict was mentioned to him, he declared 
his astonishment, for he had not really meant to 
charge him with any thing more than '■'■misprision 
of tt'eason.'''' One writer reports that several of 
the jury were ''so touched in their conscience" 
that they came afterward to Sir Walter, and on 
their knees confessed their injustice, and begged 
his pardon. Mrs. Thompson thinks that this is 
not likely, "since the men who gave such a ver- 
dict must either have been compelled by fear or 
induced by bribery to compromise their sense of 
justice, and either of these motives would have 



Pioneer of American Colonization. i8i 

kept them silent after their decision." The pris- 
oner received the verdict coolly. Upon being 
asked, according to the forms of law, what he 
had to say why sentence should not be pronounced 
upon him, he rose, and said : 

"My lords, the jury hath found me guilty. 
They must do as they are directed. I can say 
nothing why judgment should not proceed. You 
see whereof Cobham hath accused me. You re- 
member his protestation that I was never guilty. 
I desire the king should know the wTong I have 
been subject to since I came hither." 

The chief-justice said: ''You have had no 
wrong, Sir Walter." 

''Yes," said Raleigh of the attorney, "I de- 
sire the lords to remember these things to the 
king. I w^as accused to be a practicer with 
Spain. I never knew that Lord Cobham meant 
to go thither. I will ask no mercy at the king's 
hands if he will affirm it. Secondly, I never knew 
of the practices with Arabella. Thirdly, I never 
knew of my Lord Cobham's practice with Arem- 
berg, nor of the 'surprising' treason." 



1 82 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

The chief-justice then made a long and abusive 
speech, blaming Raleigh's not confessing any 
thing as an inhuman and wicked conceit, and 
closing witli sentencing him to be hanged and 
afterward beheaded. Raleigh then turned to the 
Earl of Devonshire and other lords, and solicited 
their influence with the king to change the mode 
of his death to one less ignominious. He also 
approached Cecil and the lay commissioners, and 
asked them to have Cobham brought first to the 
scaffold, and made to confront him. ''He is a 
false and cowardly accuser. He can face neither 
me nor death without acknowledging his false- 
hood." He was then conducted back to the 
castle to await the final decision of the king as 
to the execution of the sentence. 

Sir Roger Orton, a Scotchman in the service 
of the king, brought him the news of Raleigh's 
condemnation. He could not help saying that 
"never had man spoken so well in times past, 
nor would do so in times to come." Another 
Scotchman, who accompanied Sir Roger to the 
king, declared for himself, "that, although he 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 183 

would before his trial have gone a thousand miles 
to see him hanged, he would, ere he parted, 
have gone a thousand miles to have saved his 
life." This honest remark expresses the feeling 
of most of the spectators of the trial. At one 
time Coke was hissed as he uttered his coarse 
abuse; and Raleigh's noble bearing under provo- 
cation and pathetic appeals to the jury so deeply 
affected the audience and revolutionized their feel- 
ings, that one present remarked, "Never was a 
man so hated and so popular in so short a time." 
The trial of Cobham came next in order. The 
reading of the indictment was interrupted by his 
occasional denial of several particulars, and he 
charged Raleigh with exciting discontent in his 
mind, but denied any treasonable intentions. He 
admitted the truth of his first confession, and 
made a merit of it, and a plea for pardon. When 
asked about his contradictory letters respecting 
Raleigh's complicity in his crime, he affirmed the 
truth of the first letter, in which he condemned 
Raleigh. The trial occupied but little 'time, and 
he was pronounced guilty of treason. 



184 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



dli^tef XV. 

EXECUTION OF THE PRISONERS WATSON, CLARKE, AND 
BROOKE — THE KING'S MANEUVERS IN REGARD TO THE 
FATE OF RALEIGH, COBHAM, GREY, AND MARKHAM . 

EARLY in December, 1603, the authors of 
the ''surprise" plots, Watson, Clarke, and 
Brooke, were executed at Winchester. They 
were hung until nearly dead, then cut down and 
beheaded, then drawn and quartered, according 
to the barbaric usage of those times. Clarke 
justified the part he had taken in the movement, 
but Watson confessed his guilt, and acknowl- 
edged the justice of his punishment Brooke 
spoke mysteriously of some hidden cause of his 
course of conduct, saying with his last breath : 
"Tliere is somewhat hidden that will one day 
appear for my justification." This statement pro- 
duced much alarm at first among the courtiers; 
but nothing appeared to explain it, and the sen- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 185 

sation passed away. While in prison he con- 
fessed to the bishop who administered to him the 
last sacrament that he had falsely accused his 
brother and Sir Walter Raleigh. 

While waiting in prison the time appointed for 
his execution, Raleigh's friends made the most 
earnest exertions to procure his pardon from the 
king. The beloved wife of Raleigh wrote to 
Cecil, and visited him, and on her knees en- 
treated his influence in favor of her husband, 
The Countess of Pembroke entreated her son as 
he valued a mother's blessing to exert himself in 
every possible way to save the life of Sir Walter. 
The lords of the council who had judged him 
united in petitioning the king to show mercy 
in this beginning of his reign, and to "gain the 
title of Clemens as well as of Justus." Sir Walter 
himself wrote letters to the king and to the lords 
of the council, begging for his life in terms so 
humble and even abject, that he afterward was 
ashamed of it, and wrote to his wife, " Get those 
letters, if it be possible, which I wrote to the 
lords, wherein I sued for life. God knows it was 



1 86 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

for you and yours that I desired it. But it is true 
that I disdain myself for begging it." 

Queen Anne, and both the Frencli and Spanish 
embassadors, besought tlie king to show mercy 
to the prisoners, and even bribes were given to 
leading politicians, according to the corrupt usage 
of the age, to purchase their interposition. 

But no word or sign came from the king to 
inspire hope. The clergymen who visited the pris- 
oners in the exercise of their spiritual functions, 
were instructed to prepare them for death. One 
of the king's chaplains, preaching at Wilton before 
the king and court, declared that clemency to trai- 
tors was a sin against God and the state. He 
could not have done a better thing to induce James 
to exercise tlie mercy he deprecated, for he loved 
to show himself independent and self-moved in all 
his official acts. He went from the chapel, and 
wrote a warrant to stay the execution; but he 
kept it in his own hands. The next day lie 
signed the death warrants of Markham, Grey, 
and Cobham, and sent them to the sheriff at 
Winchester, to be executed two days after that, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 187 

Friday, December 10, 1603, the day fixed for the 
execution. Raleigh's execution was fixed for 
Monday, the 13th of December. 

Markham was first brought forward for execu- 
tion. He had cherished hopes of a reprieve or par- 
don, but the day before his advices extinguished 
them altogetlier, and he appeared on the scaffold 
deeply distressed in mind, but undaunted. A friend 
offered him a napkin, to conceal his face, but he 
declined it, saying, ''I can look upon death with- 
out blushing." He said that he had been so led to 
cherish hopes of pardon that he had not given 
sufficient attention to preparing himself for death. 
But now he bade his friends adieu, and, having 
knelt for some time in prayer, he prepared him- 
self for the executioner. 

As Raleigh looked from the window of the 
prison, to witness the fate of those who were to 
precede him, he observed the sheriff to pause and 
turn toward a magistrate pushing his way through 
the crowd. It was Sir James Hayes, who had 
received from a messenger a letter containing the 
king's warrant for a stay of execution. The 



1 88 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

sheriff then turned to the prisoner, standing over 
the block, and said: "You say that you are not 
prepared to die ! You shall have two hours' 
respite." He was then led from the scaffold into 
a hall, called Arthur's Hall, and locked in by 
himself, without any explanation of the mystery 
of his reprieve. It was the conceit of the small- 
minded king to punish the prisoners with the 
terrors of death, and then to commute the sen- 
tence to imprisonment. 

The next scene in this "comedy," as it has 
been styled, was the appearance of Lord Grey, 
who was brought forth by the sheriff to go through 
the same experience, without knowing what had 
happened. The young and popular nobleman 
was surrounded by friends, who came to cheer 
his last moments; and he appeared like one going 
to his marriage, rather than to his execution. He 
made a long prayer, in which he protested to 
God his innocence of treason, but confessed that 
he deserved to die for his plotting against the 
king. The sheriff waited for him to finish his 
prayer, and then stepped up to him and, to his 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 189 

surprise, told him that the king had sent word 
that Cobham should precede him, and that he 
was to wait for a time. He was then conducted 
into Arthur's Hall, where, to his astonishment, he 
found Mark ham. 

Cobham now appeared, attended by a minister. 
He showed no dismay at the prospect of death, 
but he repeated the prayers of the minister with 
special earnestness. He then expressed sorrow 
for his offense, and reiterated his accusation of 
Raleigh, saying, "It is true, as I have hope of 
my soul's resurrection." He was then told that 
he was, by the king's orders, to be confronted 
with some other prisoners. 

Presently the sheriff had Grey and Markham 
brought out and placed before him. He then 
addressed the group: "Are not your offenses 
grievous? Have you not been justly tried and 
condemned? Is not each of you subject to due 
execution, now to be performed?" The prisoners 
assented to the accusations. "Now, then," said 
the sheriff, "see the mercy of your prince, who 
of himself hath sent liither a countermand, and 



190 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

hath given you your lives!" Upon this being 
announced, the crowd about the scaffold ap- 
plauded long and lustily. The sentence of death 
was commuted to imprisonment for life, or during 
the pleasure of the king. 

At the court in Wilton the king, as a part of 
til is comic tragedy, addressed his courtiers on the 
crimes and characters of the prisoners, and con- 
cluded by saying that, as he could not show 
mercy to one without partiality, he concluded 
to ''save the lives of them all." 

Sir Walter Raleigh, for some reason, was 
spared the ignominy and agony of this mock 
execution. He remained at Winchester a month, 
and was then returned to the Tower, under the 
guard of Sir WiUiam Wade. Sir George Harvey 
was still the lieutenant of the Tower, and held 
the office until August, 1605. This officer seems 
to have treated his prisoner with all proper re- 
spect and kindness. He was not shut up, as a 
recent historian pictures, in a cell ten feet by 
eight, without even a window to let in the light 
of day; but he had a decent chamber, open to 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 191 

the garden of the lieutenant, of which he had the 
freedom, at least during the day. He was allowed 
the company of his wife and son, young Walter ; 
also the frequent attendance of his servants, the 
visits of his physicians, and of his clerical friend, 
Rev. Gilbert Hawthorne. He had permission 
occasionally to visit the cells of other prisoners, 
and especially Cobham's apartment, near by. He 
had the use of his library, and he constructed a 
rude chemical laboratory out of the hen-house in 
the garden, where he spent much of his time in 
experiments, and, it is said, obtained some celeb- 
rity for various nostrums invented by him. 

One of his nostrums was like to have involved 
him in trouble. One day the Countess of Beau- 
mont made a visit to the Tower, and, among 
other places, called at the garden, and asked Sir 
Walter to furnish her with some of his "Balsam 
of Guiana." This w^as sent to her by one Captain 
Whitlocke, who was seen in her train that day. 
This gentleman was a retainer of the Earl of 
Northumberland, who was afterward connected 
with the Gunpowder Plot; and this circumstance 



192 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

gave rise to a suspicion that Sir Walter was 
knowing to that conspiracy. He was brought 
before the lords and examined, but was acquitted. 
Besides his favorite recreations, music and 
painting, he devoted his time to reading and 
writing. The most important of all his produc- 
tions during his long imprisonment was the "His- 
tory of the World." A part of this was published 
1604. The second volume, in a fit of passion, he 
destroyed. One day his publisher, Walter Burse, 
was asked how the work sold. He answered, 
"So slowly that it has undone me." Whereupon 
Sir Walter, taking the second volume from the 
shelf, said, "The second volume shall undo ye no 
more; this ungrateful world is unworthy of it." 
He then threw it into the fire. "Both in style 
and matter," says a writer in Chambers's Encyclo- 
poedia, "this celebrated work is vastly superior to 
all the English historical productions which had 
previously appeared. Its style, though partaking 
of the faults of the age, in being frequently stiff and 
inverted, has less of those defects than the diction 
of any other writer of the time. Mr. Tytler with 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 193 

justice commends it as vigorous, purely English, 
and possessing an antique richness of ornament, 
similar to what pleases us when we see some ancient 
prior}^ or stately manor-mansion, and compare it 
with our more modern mansions. The work is 
laborious without being heavy, learned without 
being dry, acute and ingenious without degener- 
ating into the subtle but trivial distinctions of the 
schoolmen. Its narration is clear and spirited, 
and the matter collected from the most authentic 
sources. The opinions of the author upon state 
policy, on the causes of great events, on the dif- 
ferent forms of government, on naval and military 
tactics, on agriculture, commerce, manufactures, 
and other sources of national greatness, are not 
the mere echo of other minds, but the results of 
experience drawn from the study of a long life, 
spent in constant action and vicissitude, in vari- 
ous climates and countries, and from personal 
labor in offices of high trust and responsibility. 
But perhaps its most striking feature is the sweet 
tone of philosophic melancholy which pervades 
the whole. Written in prison during the quiet 

13 



194 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

evening of a tempestuous life, we feel in its peru- 
sal that we are the companions of a superior 
mind, nursed in contemplation and chastened 
and improved by sorrow, in which the bitter rec- 
ollections of injury and the asperity of resentment 
have passed away, leaving only the heavenly 
lesson that all is vanity." 

Why this valuable and eloquent history did 
not sell can not be explained. It shared the fate 
of many other productions of genius which con- 
temporaries have left to after times to appreciate. 

Besides this, Raleigh composed treatises enti- 
tled: "Discourses on the Match with Savoy;" 
''Treatise on the Art of War by Sea, Ancient 
and Modern;" "Discourses of the Invention of 
Ships;" "Observations Concerning the Royal 
Navy." The first of this list was written by the 
request of Prince Henry, the heir-apparent of the 
English throne, on the occasion of the Spanish 
embassador proposing to the king to marry his 
daughter to the eldest son of the Duke of Savoy, 
and his son. Prince Henry, to a daughter of the 
same prince. Raleigh gave good and substantial 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 195 

reasons why this twofold match should not be 
made; and by so doing he incurred the displeas- 
ure of the king and some of his advisers. He 
forfeited also some of his privileges at the Tower; 
and was placed under close imprisonment for 
three months. Prince Henry, however, was his 
fast friend, and gave every encouragement to his 
literary labors. 

Such was Sir Walter's condition for twelve 
long, weary years. As to the other prisoners, 
Lord Grey died in the Tower in 1614; and Cob- 
ham, after remaining about the same length of 
time in prison, was set at liberty, to pass a few 
more wretched years in poverty, neglect, and dis- 
grace, and to die in a garret. While yet in 
prison, he confessed the falsity of his accusation 
of Raleigh, when Queen Anne contrived to have 
him examined again under oath. He lived long 
enough to see the sad doom of his victim, and 
soon after passed to his account before the Great 
Judge. As it respects Markham, the author has 
no knowledge of what happened to him after his 
removal to the Tower. 



196 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



dlikptef XVI. 

DEATH OF CECIL AND PRINCE HENRY — RALEIGH RELEASED 

FROM THE TOWER — PROJECTS ANOTHER 

EXPEDITION TO GUIANA. 

ROBERT CECIL, Lord Treasurer of the 
Government of James I, was the second 
son of WiUiam Cecil, Lord Burleigh, the wise and 
successful leader of the previous reign. He was 
of a delicate and somewhat deformed frame, but 
with a mind keen, alert, and fruitful. He grad- 
uated at the Cambridge University. His first im- 
portant office under the government of Elizabeth 
was as assistant to the embassador to France, 
Lord Derby. In 1596 he was made one of the 
secretaries of state, and finally he became the 
principal secretary and privy councilor to the 
queen. He secretly favored the claim of James 
to the succession. One day, travefing with the 
queen, he received dispatches from the Scottish 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 197 

court, and upon being asked about it by her, he 
pretended that it pertained to some of his private 
affairs, and eluded her vigilance. On the acces- 
sion of James he was continued in his office. 
Though in person he was not such as the weak- 
minded king liked to have around him, the 
charms of his eloquence, his penetrating and 
comprehensive intellect, and the substantial in- 
tegrity of his moral character won for him the 
royal confidence. He was successively made a 
baron, Viscount of Cranbourn, and Earl of Salis- 
bury. He was chosen chancellor of Cambridge 
University, and in 1608 lord high treasurer. He 
was a friend of Raleigh when Sir Walter was the 
favorite of Elizabeth, and he always pretended 
to be, though he took the part of the king in his 
disgrace and condemnation. He was in religious 
sentiment inclined to Puritanism. In 161 2 his 
health gave way, and on his journey to London 
from Bath, where he had in vain sought relief in 
its mineral springs from complicated diseases, he 
died at Marlborough on the 28th of May. He 
welcomed death as the great release from care and 



198 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

trouble. "Ease and pleasure quake to hear of 
death," he said; "but my life, full of cares and 
miseries, desireth to be dissolved." His last 
hours were employed in devotion, and such was 
his expression of hope and trust in the Redeemer 
that it shed around his dying bed on the minds 
of all who attended him a twilight of immortality. 
The death of Cecil removed one obstacle to 
the pardon and release of Raleigh, for he be- 
lieved that the judgment against him was just, 
and so advised the king not to accede to the pe- 
titions of distinguished friends, including Queen 
Anne, wlio were interested in his favor. Only six 
months after this event the death of Raleigh's 
friend, Prince Henry, brought a deeper cloud over 
his prospects. This young man possessed superior 
qualities of mind and heart. He was the idol of 
his mother; but his father's heart was made cold 
toward him by the diiference of their views in 
regard to matters of state policy, and by his 
growing popularity. Early in the Fall he began 
to complain of giddiness in the head, attended 
with pain. He resorted as a remedy to traveling 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 199 

about from place to place; but without success. 
Drowsiness and coldness in the head and the 
pallor of his countenance indicated that his end 
was approaching. On his last appearing at public 
worship, the text was ominous of his destiny : 
"Man that is born of a woman is of few days 
and full of trouble : he cometh forth like a flower, 
and is cut down : he fleeth also as a shadow, and 
continueth not." (Job xiv, i, 2.) Some weeks 
before his death he went down to Woolwich to wit- 
ness, in company with his mother, the launching 
of a ship built for him on a plan suggested by 
Raleigh, and called after him ^^ The Prince ^ 
The launch was not successful at the first; but 
subsequent trials sent her forth on Jier mission. 
And she was destined to do a good service for 
the royal family, for it was in that ship Prince 
Charles outrode the fearful gale which swept many 
feeble craft to destruction. 

As Prince Henry drew near his end, Raleigh 
was applied to by the queen for a cordial he had 
invented in the Tower, and which had given her 
relief in a severe illness, and had a great reputa- 



200 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

tion and run in the land. Raleigh sent it with 
the remark that it would cure the prince of any 
one of a fever if not poisoned. Such was the 
credulity of those times in respect to the efficacy 
of specific doses. But the disease of the prince 
had too far progressed for any earthly relief. All 
the effect it had was to soothe his sufferings and 
procure sleep. The queen was compelled to 
witness the death of her noble son, and she be- 
lieved to her dying day that he was the victim 
of poison. Various stories were circulated; some 
said that he was poisoned by a bunch of grapes, 
some by poisoned gloves. His chaplain hesi- 
tated not to declare his belief in the truth of 
these rumors. Suspicion fell upon Robert Car, 
Viscount Rochester, the king's favorite, upon the 
Spaniards, the Catholics, and even upon King 
James himself. The queen believed that Car 
was the instigator of his death, and refused 
to see him ever after. That he was capable of 
so great a crime was proved by his poisoning 
two years afterward the food of Sir Thomas Over- 
bury in the Tower, as was proved by the apothe- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 201 

Gary's clerk who prepared the last fatal dose for 
the unhappy prisoner. 

The death of Prince Henry put an end to Sir 
Walter's expectation of a speedy release from 
the Tower. That brave and amiable youth had 
ventured to urge this favor with his eccentric 
father, and had prevailed so far as to get the 
promise of it by the next Christmas; but the 
merry bells of Christmas were sounded over his 
grave, and the promise of the king was buried 
with him. The queen remained his friend, and 
in 1614 her intercessions on the plea of Raleigh's 
failing health in confinement procured for him the 
liberty of tlie Tower, that is, permission to go 
about it for recreation without leaving its walls. 

During this year he was afflicted by the flight 
of his son Walter to Netherlands, to avoid the 
consequences of a duel he had with Robert Tyr- 
whit, an attache of the Earl of Suffolk, then the 
lord high treasurer succeeding Cecil. The affair 
blew over soon, and Walter returned to England. 

The time was now at hand when Raleigh was 
to once more enjoy liberty and the privilege of 



202 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

serving his country. The unprincipled Car was 
succeeded as favorite of the king by George 
ViUiers, afterward Duke of Buckingham. To 
tliis young man as gentleman of the bed-chamber, 
having the ear of the king, Raleigh made over- 
tures for his liberation. These he backed up by 
the influence of the mother of Villiers, and by 
his uncles, Sir William and Sir Edward, whose 
efforts he i3urchased, according to the corrupt 
custom of the times, by the payment of one 
thousand five hundred pounds. He had also 
favorably impressed the king's ministers, espe- 
cially Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State, 
with his project of a second expedition to Guiana. 
He had during his imprisonment sent a vessel 
every year to Guiana to assure the natives of the 
favor and protection of the English against the 
Spanish colonies. He believed he was doing a 
great service to the king, and he longed to be 
free to show his loyalty by such "service as had 
seldom been performed for any king." The long- 
desired order for his liberation was sent by the 
king on the 30th of January, 16 16. He was al- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 203 

lowed to reside at his own house, but was under 
the surveillance of a keeper. On the 19th of 
March the privy council wrote to him, giving 
permission to undertake measures for the Guiana 
expedition in the following terms : 

"His majesty, out of his gracious inclinations 
toward you, being pleased to release you out 
of your imprisonment in the Tower to go abroad 
with a keeper to make your provisions for your 
intended voyage, we think it good to admonish 
you (though we do not prejudicate your own dis- 
cretion so much as to think you would attempt it 
without leave) that you should not presume to 
resort either to his majesty's court, the queen's, 
or prince's, nor go into any public assemblies 
wheresoever, without especial license obtained 
from his majesty for your warrant. But only 
that you use the benefit of his majesty's grace 
to follow the business which you are to under- 
take, and for which, upon your humble request, 
his majesty hath been graciously pleased to grant 
you that pardon." 

Was ever a condemned criminal before or 



204 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

since employed by any government to take charge 
of an important enterprise for the benefit of the 
nation before pardon had been given him, and 
while he was under the oversight of a keeper? 
Just such was the intolerable meanness of King 
James. His purpose was to let this great adven- 
turer make an experiment to find the gold mines 
of South America. If he succeeded, the king 
would be made rich; if he did not succeed, he 
should lose his head. Sir Walter was anxious 
about getting his pardon before he set forth, and 
consulted with Lord Bacon in regard to it; but 
Bacon assured him that it was not necessary, for 
pardon was implied in his appointment as ad- 
miral of the fleet and commander of the expedi- 
tion. Time will show how this was understood 
by the king. 

Before Raleigh left the Tower, two events took 
place of deepest interest to him — the death of 
Lady Arabella Stuart and the imprisonment of 
Robert Car, Earl of Somerset, to whom the king 
had given Sherborne, the forfeited estate of Ra- 
leigh, saying to those who objected, "I maun 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 205 

have it for Car." ''The whole history of the 
world," said Raleigh, "had not a like precedent 
of a king's prisoner to purchase freedom, and his 
bosom favorite to have the halter, but in Scrip- 
ture, in the case of Mordecai and Haman." As to 
poor Lady Arabella, whose only crime was that 
she had royal blood in her veins, being the grand- 
daughter of Henry VII, and next to James in 
the line of succession to the throne of England, 
she was not proved to have any participation in 
the conspiracy of Cobham and others to place 
her on the throne, and was left at liberty. But 
subsequently it was discovered that she had se- 
cretly married the grandson of the Earl of Hert- 
ford, and for that she and her husband were sent 
to the Tower. In the course of the year they 
escaped; but Arabella was captured, and taken 
back to prison. These troubles wrought upon 
her mind, and deprived her of her reason. At 
lier death, in September, 16 15, she was thirty- 
eight years of age. 



2o6 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



dljkptef XVII. 

THE GUIANA EXPEDITION. 

WITH characteristic alacrity and devotion 
to business, Sir Walter Raleigh began 
his preparations for the voyage. For this pur- 
pose he called in a loan of eight thousand 
pounds to the Countess of Bedford, and added 
two thousand five hundred pounds from the sale 
of Lady Raleigh's estate at Mitcham in Surrey, 
which she freely contributed for her husband's 
sake. His friends, among whom were the Earls 
of Huntingdon and Arundel, and some merchants, 
chiefly foreigners, took shares in the enterprise; 
but no pecuniary aid was given by the govern- 
ment. A commission was given, August 26, 161 6, 
to Sir Walter, constituting him admiral of the 
fleet. Authority was given him "to carry for 
the voyage to Guiana so many of the British sub- 
jects as should willingly accompany him, with an 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 207 

unlimited supply of arms, ammunition, ships, etc." 
Also to trade with the natives, and to bring home 
gold, silver, etc., ''for the proper use of Sir 
Walter Raleigh and his company, reserving to 
the king and his heirs one-fifth only of such im- 
portations." Raleigh was also constituted general 
and commander of the enterprise, governor of the 
new country, with the privilege of exercising 
martial law, in a similar manner to the county 
lieutenants of England, or to the Heutenant-gen- 
eral of land or sea forces. It is said that the 
document began in the usual way, with the 
words, "To our trusty and well beloved knight. 
Sir Walter Raleigh ;" and it was pleaded after- 
ward that these words implied a pardon from 
the king. 

On the 28th of March, 161 8, the fleet was 
ready to sail. It consisted of seven vessels as it 
proceeded down the Thames, and at Plymouth it 
was joined by four more, making eleven sail. 
Walter Raleigh, Jr., was made captain of the flag- 
ship, the Destiny. The other captains were. Sir 
John Feme, Lawrence Keymis, Wallaston, Chad- 



2o8 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

leigh, and Pennington. A carvel and two fly- 
boats were added to the fleet at Plymouth. The 
admiral's flag-ship was four hundred and fifty tons 
burden, and carried thirty-six guns. Besides the 
crew, there were on board two hundred volun- 
teers, eighty of whom were gentlemen. A large 
part of the company in the different shijDS were 
of a low and dissolute character, whose native 
land furnished them no prospect of success, and 
whose friends were only too glad to get rid of 
them, "at the hazard," as Raleigh said, "of some 
thirty, forty, or sixty pounds, knowing that they 
could not live so cheaply at home." To this 
mixed company Raleigh published his Orders, 
which a contemporary writer described as admi- 
rable, "fit to be written and engraven in every 
man's soul that covets to do honor to his king 
and country." Among the regulations was a 
requisite of morning and evening worship, to be 
omitted only in foul weather, when a psalm should 
be sung at the setting of the evening watch. He 
reminded his followers that " no enterprise can 
prosper, be it by land or sea, without the favor 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 209 

and assistance of Almighty God, the Lord and 
Strength of hosts and armies." 

The prayers and good wishes of numerous 
friends attended the departure of the fleet; but 
some friends prophesied evil would come to it. 
They knew that he had undertaken it from a de- 
sire to conciliate the king, more than from any 
spirit of enterprise, and tliey could not suppress 
the foreboding of disappointment. 

Sylvanus Scory sent him, from London, the 
following lines, to cheer and assure him : 

"Raleigh, in this thyself thyself transcends, 
"When honrly tasting of a bitter chalice, 
Scanning the sad faces of thy friends. 

Thou smil'st at Fortune's menaces and malice. 

Hold thee firm here: cast anchor in this port: 
Here art thou safe till Death enfranchise thee: 

Where neither harm, nor fears of harm, resort: 
Here, though enchained, thou liv'st in liberty. 

Nothing on earth hath permanent abode, 
Nothing shall languish under sorrow still. 

The Fates have set a certain period, 
As well to those that do as suffer ill." 

The spectator who took the deepest interest in 
this enterprise was the Spanish embassador, Count 



210 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Gondomar. He felt that the success of Raleigh 
would be at the expense of Spain, and he had 
already contrived to impress King James with 
misgivings in regard to the propriety of the whole 
scheme. He had obtained from James a full 
catalogue of all the ships and of their armament, 
and had transmitted it to the Spanish court. 
It is clear, now, that Raleigh must succeed, or 
be ruined. 

The fleet had scarcely got out of Plymouth 
Harbor, on the 12th of June, 161 7, when a storm 
assailed them, and continued with violence for 
several weeks, and ended in a terrific tempest. 
They were then some eight leagues off the Scilly 
Islands. After the sinking of one vessel, the 
admiral signaled to the fleet to follow him to the 
harbor of Cork. Here for six weeks they were 
obliged to wait for a fair wind, a period long 
enough to have reached America, under favorable 
circumstances. This delay not only consumed 
precious time and provisions for the voyage, but 
gave rise to absurd rumors that he intended to 
turn pirate, and not to go on the Guiana expedition. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 211 

The first adventure that occurred after setting 
sail again was the chase and capture of four sus- 
picious-looking ships, which were flying French 
colors. One of the shrewd captains of the fleet 
advised Raleigh not to credit their pretense of 
being merchantmen, but to confiscate them as 
corsairs. But he refused, saying, "It is no busi- 
ness of mine to examine the subjects of the 
French king." Some time afterward it turned 
out that he had proof that he was mistaken. 
They were pirates, and would have been law- 
ful prey. 

He readied the Canary Islands early in Sep- 
tember, and came to anchor in Lancerota. The 
people were very much excited to see a fleet of 
thirteen vessels anchoring in their waters, taking 
them for Algerian pirates, as they had received 
warning of the intention of these ferocious cor- 
sairs to make their islands a visit. This suspicion 
was increased by some of the ships landing their 
crews in the night. But Raleigh sought an inter- 
view with the governor, and assured him of 
peaceable intentions, and asked leave to lay in 



212 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

water and provisions. The governor demanded 
that the crews should be recalled to the ships, as 
some conflict had already taken place between 
them and the natives, and three of the English 
had been wounded. Raleigh acceded to the 
request, much to the chagrin of some of his men, 
wlio wished to take vengeance on the town. But 
such conduct would have endangered the com- 
merce of merchantmen with the islands, and 
have excited the displeasure of the king and the 
government. 

One of his captains at this time proved him- 
self a traitor. Bailey, captain of the IIusba?id, 
stole away with his ship, and returned to Eng- 
land, where he reported that he left Sir Walter at 
Lancerota because he had landed in a hostile 
manner, and also meant to turn pirate. This 
man's conduct, it is suspected, was a part of a 
plot of his Spanish and English enemies at home 
to implicate Raleigh in unlawful transactions, and 
to bring ruin upon him. 

Not having permission to purchase stores and 
to get supplies at the town, Raleigh moved down 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 213 

tlie island, and landed some men to procure 
water at an uninhabited place. But the ships 
had been followed by hostile parties on shore, 
and, while the seamen were busy filling their 
casks, they were fired upon, and one of them 
was killed. The assailants, numbering about 
forty, were boldly attacked by young Walter Ra- 
leigh, at the head of a file of six or eight men, 
and were driven from their ambush and scattered. 
Proceeding thence, the fleet touched at Go- 
mera, another of the Canaries. Here he received 
a welcome quite in contrast with his recent expe- 
rience. The wife of the governor was a noble 
English lady; and on sending his message Raleigh 
accompanied it with a present of English gloves. 
He received in return from her a present of fruits, 
rusks, and other needed refreshments, a part of 
which he distributed among the sick men in the 
fleet. He gave the strictest orders to his men to 
avoid giving offense when on shore. The man 
who should steal so much as an orange or a bunch 
of grapes should be hung in the public square. 
Before leaving the island, the governor expressed 



214 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

his great gratification at the good behavior of the 
sailors, and even promised to send a letter to the 
same effect to the government at Madrid. His 
lady also sent on board a fresh store of fruit and 
poultry, in return for a present of lace, some per- 
fumes prepared by Raleigh when in the Tower, 
and a beautiful picture of the Magdalen. "This 
incident," adds our eloquent authority, Edwards, 
"was to prove for a year to come the one pleas- 
ant oasis amid the dreary memories of a voyage 
crowded with calamity." 

Leaving the Canaries, where his crew had 
been refreshed, and tlie sick among them im- 
proved in health or recovered, he encountered a 
series of disasters. The sickness which had been 
quelled broke out afresh in the fleet, and fifty men 
in his flag-ship were prostrated by it. Two cap- 
tains, the chief surgeon, the provost marshal, and 
several other officers, died. Off the isle of Brava, 
one of the Cape de Verde Islands, in latitude 14° 
48' north, and longitude 20° 44' west, one of the 
terrible hurricanes known to those tropical seas 
sunk one of his vessels, and damaged others. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 215 

The disease increased, until a large number of his 
best men in all the ships were carried off, includ- 
ing John Pigott, the lieutenant-general of the land 
forces, and his trusty servant John Talbot, his 
assistant and companion in the Tower. Then 
came calms more terrible than storms, with tor- 
rents of rain that overwhelmed the ships and 
filled the cabins. 

So they fared until on the nth of November 
they sighted Cape Orange, then called Wiapoco; 
and on the 14th they cast anchor in the river 
Cayenne, then called Caliana. Here he made it 
his first business to write the following letter to 
his beloved and anxious wife : 

"Sweetheart, — I can yet write unto you but 
with a weak hand, for I have suffered the most 
violent calenture for fifteen days that ever man 
did and lived ; but God, that gave me a strong 
heart in all my adversities, hath also now strength- 
ened it in the hell-fire of heat. 

*'We have had two of the most grevious sick- 
nesses in our ship, of which forty-two have died, 
and there are yet many sick; but having recov- 



2i6 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

ered the land of Guiana this 12th of November, 
I hope we shall recover them. We are yet two 
hundred men, and the rest of our fleet are reason- 
ably strong — strong enough, I hope, to perform 
what we have undertaken, if the diligent care at 
London to make our strength known to the Span- 
ish king by bis embassador hath not taught the 
Spanish king to fortify all the entrances against us. 
Howsoever, we must make the adventure; and if 
we perish, it shall be no honor for England, nor 
gain for his majesty, to lose, among many others, 
one Imndred as valiant gentlemen as England 
hath in it. 

"Of Captain Bailey's base coming from us at 
the Canaries, see a letter of Kemish's to Mr.Scory; 
and of the unnatural weather, storms and rains 
and Avinds, he hath in the same letter given a 
touch. Of the way that hath been sailed in four- 
teen days, now hardly performed in forty days, 
God, I trust, will give us comfort in that which 
is to come. In the passage to the Canaries, I 
stayed at Gomera, where I took water in peace, 
because the country durst not deny it me. I re- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 217 

ceived there of a countess of the English race a 
present of oranges, lemons, quinces, and pome- 
granates, without which I could not have lived. 
These I preserved in sands, and I have them yet 
to my great refreshing. Your son had never so 
good health, having no distemper in all the heat 
under the line. My servants have escaped but 
Crab and my cook; yet all have had the sickness. 
Crafts and March and the rest are all well. Re- 
member my service to my Lord Carew and Mr. 
Secretary Win wood. I wrote not to them, for I 
can write of nothing but miseries yet. 

"Of men of sort we have lost one sergeant- 
major, Captain Pigott, and his lieutenant, Captain 
Edward Hastings, who would have died at home, 
for both his liver, spleen, and brains were rotten; 
my son's lieutenant. Pay ton, and my cousin, Mr. 
Hews; Mr. Mordaunt, Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Hay- 
ward, Captain Jennings, the merchant; Kemish, 
of London, and the master chirurgeon; master 
refiner; Mr. Moor, the governor of Bermudas; 
our provost marshal, W. Steed; Lieutenant Vescie; 
but, to my inestimable grief, Plammon and Talbot. 



2i8 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

By the next I trust you shall hear better of us. 
In God's hands we are, and in him we trust. 

"This bearer, Captain Alley, for his infirmity 
of his head, I have sent back — an honest, valiant 
man. He can dehver you all that is past. Com- 
mend me to my worthy friends at Loathbury, Sir 
John Leigh, and Mr. Bower (whose nephew Kner- 
vit is well), and to my cousin Blundell, and my 
most devoted and humble service to his majesty. 
''To tell you that I might be here king of the 
Indians were a vanity; but my name hath still 
lived among them. Here they feed me with 
fresh meat and all that the country yields. All 
offer to obey me. Commend me to poor Carew, 

my son. 

^'■From Calliana, in Guiana, the \\th of November, 1617." 

While these events were passing on this side 
the ocean, the deserter Bailey was doing his 
best in London to injure the reputation and 
destroy the influence of Sir Walter. He was 
called to an account for his conduct by the 
Lord Admiral Howard, the Earl of Nottingham, 
the former friend of Sir Walter in times gone by. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 219 

But when the case came before the privy council, 
the Lord Admiral was prevented from attending 
by sickness, and it happened, too, that Secretary 
Winwood, the friend of Raleigh in all these ad- 
ventures, died suddenly, and not without suspicion 
that he had been poisoned. The result, therefore, 
of the inquiries was that the ship and goods which 
had been taken from Bailey were ordered to be 
restored to him, and he escaped the punishment 
due to his crimes. Not long after Captain Reeks, 
whose ship was in the harbor of Lancerota when 
Raleigh was there, and for whose sake in part he 
forbore to fire upon the town to avenge the treat- 
ment he had received of the governor and some 
of the people, arrived in England, and gave a 
true and unvarnished account of the affair. He 
said that at first the governor of the island had 
promised Sir Walter that "he should want for 
nothing the island afforded;" but afterward, with- 
out provocation, ''all the goods of the town of 
Lancerota were sent to the mountains, and the 
governor sent Sir Walter Raleigh word that he 
was a pirate, and should have no more than what 



2 20 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

he could win by his sword." The effect of this 
testimony was to assure the friends of Raleigh, 
and to cause the arrest of Bailey, and his com- 
mitment to the State-house at Westminster. 

To return to America, we find Sir Walter too 
ill to leave his ship, except as he was carried 
ashore in a chair. He makes inquiry for his 
friend Harry, the Indian who had so long looked 
for his return, and earnestly inquired after him 
of every English ship that had appeared on that 
coast. It was not long before Harry made his 
appearance, preceded and accompanied with muni- 
ficent presents of "roasted mullets (which were 
very good meat), great store of plantains and pine- 
apples, with pistachios (or ground-nuts), and divers 
other sorts of fruit." 

The ships having taken time for needful re- 
pairs, orders were given to proceed toward the 
river Orinoco, and the ** Triangle Isles" were 
made the "general rendezvous.''^ Captain Key- 
mis, wlio had familiar acquaintance with country, 
had the command of the expedition to search for 
the gold mines, the grand object of the whole en- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 221 

terprise. The land forces were placed under the 
general command of George Raleigh, the nephew 
of Sir Walter. Under him were Captains Ra- 
leigh, the son of Sir Walter, Parker, North. 
Thornhurst, and Hall. 

Sir Walter, still suffering from a relapse of his 
disease, gave written directions to the principal 
commanders how to proceed. The land forces 
were to encamp "between the Spanish town and 
the mine, if there be any camp near it; that, be- 
ing so secured, you may make trial what depth 
and breadth the mine holds, and whether or no it 
answers our hopes. If you find it royal, and the 
Spaniards begin to war on you, you, George Ra- 
leigh, are to repel them, if it be in your power, 
and to drive them as far as you can." 

To Keymis he wrote: "If you find the mine 
be not so rich as may persuade the holding of it, 
and draw on a second supply, then you shall 
bring but a packet or two, to satisfy His Majesty 
that my design was not imaginary, but true, 
though not answerable to His Majesty's expecta- 
tion. Of the quantity I never gave assurance, 



22 2 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

nor could. On the other side, if you shall find 
that any great number of soldiers be newly sent 
to Orinoco, as the cacique of Caliana told us that 
they were, and that the passage be re-enforced so 
that, without manifest peril of my son, yourself, 
and the other captains, you can not pass toward 
the mine, then be well advised how you land. 
For I know, a few gentlemen excepted, what a 
scum of men you have. And I would not for all 
the world receive a blow from the Spaniard, to 
the dishonor of our nation. 1 myself, for my 
weakness, can not be present. Neither will the 
companies land except I stay with the ships, the 
galleons of Spain being daily expected." 

That part of the fleet detailed for this enter- 
prise set sail for the Orinoco on the loth of De- 
cember, and the first of January found Sir Walter 
making his head-quarters at Terra de Bri, a port 
of Trinidad, about one hundred and fifty miles 
north of the mouth of the Orinoco. It took over 
three weeks for the fleet to reach the river and 
ascend it as far as the island of Taya. A fisher- 
man who was on the watch for them carried the 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 223 

news of their arrival to St. Thomas, a new Span- 
ish town, near the entrance of the Caroni into 
the Orinoco. Of the existence of this new St. 
Thomas, Raleigh had not been informed, nor was 
it to be seen from the river. Passing on, the fleet 
arrived at Point Araya on the ist of January, 
1 61 8. The land forces were landed here, intend- 
ing to encamp for the night, and the next morn- 
ing 10 march in search of the gold mines. A 
party of Spaniards, under the command of Ge- 
ronimo de Grados, were in ambusli on a rising 
point between them and the village, and as soon 
as night set in surprised the English camp by a 
sudden and furious attack. The English rallied, 
and, led by young Captain Raleigh and the otlier 
captains, they repelled and drove the Spaniards 
back. Presently troops from St. Thomas, under 
Diego Palomaque, came to their assistance. Call- 
ing upon the pikemen not to wait for the mus- 
keteers, Raleigh drove at them, and slew witlv his 
own hand their leader. He was struck by a 
musket shot, but, reckless of his wound, he at- 
tacked with his sword an officer, named Erinetta, 



2 24 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

who defended himself with the butt of his mus- 
ket, and struck Walter to the ground. Mortally 
wounded, he cheered on his men, crying, "Go 
on! May the Lord have mercy on me, and 
prosper your enterprise !" Erinetta was immedi- 
ately pierced to the heart by a halbert in the 
hands of a sergeant. The Spaniards retreat. A 
party of them took refuge in a monastery at the 
outskirts of the town. It was stormed and taken. 
The survivors of the fight escaped to the forest, 
and finally to the place of refuge occupied by the 
women and children, who had fled from the town 
on the approach of the English. 

Garcia de Aguilar, who succeeded Palomaque, 
ordered the women, children, and invalids to be 
removed to an island in the Orinoco, and organ- 
ized the defeated troops of St. Thomas. One 
portion of them was to guard the place of refuge, 
and another portion to hang about St. Thomas, 
to prevent the English from holding communica- 
tion wath the Indians, and to cut off any strag- 
glers who might wander from the town. 

The death of Walter Raleigh, Jr., threw a 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 225 

gloom over the English camp, who now occupied 
the town. He and Captain Cosmar were buried 
with military ceremonies near the high altar of 
the Church of St. Thomas. 

The same day the vessels of Captain Whitney 
and Captain Wallaston arrived. 

Captain Keymis now took two launches, and 
ascended the Orinoco in search of the mine; 
but one of the launches being fired into by an 
ambuscade of Spaniards near Seiba, and nine out 
of ten men constituting the crew being shot, he 
turned back to St. Thomas for re-enforcements. 
Those that remained in the captured town made 
inquiries and earnest search for the coveted 
mines. The Indians whom they met assured 
them that they existed in this region, but had not 
been worked for a long time, for want of imple- 
ments. Although Captain Keymis seems to be 
disheartened in respect to further efforts to reach 
the gold mine, George Raleigh Avas not in the 
mood to give up, and, taking three boats filled 
with soldiers and workers, he ascended the Orinoco 

as far as the mouth of the Guarico, a hundred 

15 



2 26 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

leagues or more above St. Thomas. He was de- 
lighted with the country, and saw how attractive 
it was to emigration; but he found no gold mines, 
nor indeed made any effort to discover them. 

When he returned to St. Thomas he found the 
company ready to abandon the enterprise. They 
had suffered from sickness, and were in constant 
alarm from the hostility of the Spaniards and the 
natives. No one could venture out of the town 
without danger of being captured, tortured, and 
killed. One night the town was assaulted by a 
large force of the enemy, and fired in several 
places. It was concluded by all parties that the 
enterprise was a faihire. The death of young 
Raleigh, the sickness of the admiral, over whose 
head was suspended the penalty of death, and 
the discovery of documents containing the corre- 
spondence of the Spanish government at Madrid 
with the late governor of Guiana, Palomaque, by 
which it appeared that the whole enterprise was 
betrayed by King James, even before it left Eng- 
land, all taken with the fact that the Spaniards and 
their Indian allies were every-where in force to 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 227 

resist, disposed Captain Keymis to give up the whole 
business, and to quit the country. It can not be that 
he doubted the existence of the precious metals in 
the interior, for he had in previous voyages satis- 
fied himself of that fact, and had brought off 
heavy nuggets of gold as samples obtained from 
the Indians; but he thought it not wise to persist 
in the face of such obstacles and perils as he en- 
countered, and with symptoms of mutiny in the 
camp, and with traitors in the rear in the English 
government. He had sent Sir Walter a letter 
containing the sad news of his noble son's death, 
and now he must bear to him the intelligence 
worse than death or bereavement, of the failure 
of his long cherished scheme. Taking with them 
some spoils, six hundred reals in money, a silver 
basin, some gold nuggets, church bells, and orna- 
ments, the English troops set fire to the town, 
and embarked in their vessels. Two of the 
Indian captives they took away with them, one 
of whom lived to reach England, and to bring 
back to Guiana the wonderful story of English 
civilization. Going down the river, he came to 



228 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

the territory of some Indian tribes, whose caicques 
remembered Raleigh, and made flattering offers 
to induce the company to settle with them, and 
share their wealth, saying that they had held a 
portion of the country for Elizabeth; but Keymis 
was full of suspicion now of collusion with the 
Spaniards, and he declined the overtures. Here 
was a chance, some writers think, of redeeming 
the expedition from failure, and so thought Ra- 
leigh; but it was not to be. 

The fleet now made straight for Trinidad, 
where they arrived on the 2d of March, 16 18, 
having been gone less than two months, of which 
twenty-five days had been spent at St. Thomas. 
The reception which Keymis received from the 
admiral may be easily imagined. The death of 
young Raleigh had filled the cup of his sorrow to 
the brim, and now the report of the defeated ex- 
pedition and the blasting of his last hope of success 
made it to run over. His reproaches were deep 
and bitter. The failure to discover the mines would 
be ruin to himself and to all concerned. In vain 
did Keymis plead that he had not force sufficient 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 229 

to penetrate into the interior against the combined 
opposition of Spaniards and Indians ; that Gonda- 
mar had got ahead of them, and had roused the 
whole country against the invasion of the En- 
glish; that if he had persisted and found the 
mines, it would only be to the final advantage of 
the Spaniards, for he had not men enough to 
hold it; that his followers were dispirited upon 
young Raleigh's death, and he could not rely on 
them; that he feared Sir Walter himself would 
sink under his sickness and grief at his son's 
death, and he did not care "to enrich a company 
of rascals who made no account of him." 

"You have undone me, wounded my credit 
with the king past recovery," repeated Sir Walter. 
"You must answer it to the king and to the 
State." Keymis is overwhelmed with grief and 
remorse. He retires to his cabin, and writes a 
long and elaborate apology to the Earl of Arundel, 
one of the patrons of the enterprise, and brings it 
to Raleigh for his sanction. But he refused to do 
so, saying that he had refuted every point, and 
no satisfactory explanation could be made. "Is 



230 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

that your resolution?" said Keymis. "It is," 
said Raleigh. ''I know then," said Keymis as 
he withdrew, "what course to take." Not long 
after a pistol-shot was heard in the cabin over- 
head. A page was sent to inquire what it meant. 
The door was shut, and Keymis answered from 
within that the pistol had long been charged, and 
he had fired it off. Less than an hour after the 
lad goes into the room, and finds the captain 
lying on his bed with the pistol by his side and 
a knife penetrating his breast. The knife had 
done what the ball had failed to effect — the veteran 
seaman was dead. 

The whole fleet was now assembled at Trini- 
dad. During the absence of the exploring expe- 
dition Sir Walter was in constant expectation of 
the arrival of a hostile fleet from Spain. The 
Spaniards at Trinidad had given him considerable 
annoyance. A boat was fired into at one time 
by a party in ambush; but no one was killed 
or wounded. Soon another boat crew wander- 
ing on shore were attacked, and one man was 
killed, and a boy was taken captive and never 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 231 

recovered, though Raleigh pursued the enemy and 
scattered them. The question now arose what 
course the united fleet should take. Captains 
Whitney and Wallaston concluded that it would 
be ruin to return to England, and that something 
must be done to wreak vengeance on the Span- 
iards, and to secure spoils to enrich themselves. 
Raleigh hinted that the Mexican Plate Fleet 
might be a useful prey. This he said to divert 
the minds of the captains from undertaking priv- 
ateering on their own account, for his own mind 
was fully bent on returning directly homeward; 
but it was of no avail with Whitney and Wallas- 
ton, who took the first opportunity to desert with 
their ships. It is clear that Raleigh regarded 
depredations on Spanish commerce as lawful re- 
prisals for the damage done him and his enter- 
prise; but he had promised Arundel and Pem- 
broke to return to England, and he meant to 
keep his word. His remarks about the Mexican 
Plate Fleet, however, were quoted against him as 
proofs that he meant to turn pirate. The news 
of the taking and burning of St. Thomas had got 



232 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

to Madrid some days before it reached England, 
and Gondamar had rushed into the presence of 
King James crying in Spanish, ''Pirates! pirates! 
pirates!" and as James was now bent on a mar- 
riage of Prince Charles with the Spanish Infanta, it 
was proof enough that Walter Raleigh had com- 
mitted a great crime; and he was glad that he 
had not pardoned him before he set forth on the 
expedition, and could now get rid of him by exe- 
cuting the sentence which had been suspended 
so long. 

In a council of the leaders of the expedition 
it was concluded to pass up the American coast 
to Newfoundland, and there to repair the ships, 
and conclude what further to do before returning 
home. He still clung to the idea of making some- 
thing out of Guiana. However, at Newfoundland 
he found his crews so anxious to return to Eng- 
land, and almost ready to mutiny, and some ot 
the ships actually going, that he concluded to 
follow them, and abandon himself to the mercy 
of the king. Never was hope more illusive. 
His doom was already prepared. We next find 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 233 

him on the Irish coast, and anchoring at Kings- 
dale with two or three of his ships, the rest of the 
fleet having been scattered by storms. Thence 
Sir Walter proceeds in the Destiny to Plymouth, 
where he arrived on the 21st of June, 16 18. 
Captain Pennington's ship was seized by the lord 
deputy of Ireland, under orders from the court, 
previously given, to attach any and all of the 
Guiana squadron which might put into any Irish 
port. Captain Pennington went to London to 
seek redress, and was arrested and put in prison. 
Such were the first fruits and earnest of what was 
in store for Sir Walter. 



234 Sir Walter Raleigh. 



dlikptei^ XVIII. 

ARRESTED ON HIS JOURNEY TO LONDON — EXPEDIENTS TO 
ESCAPE— COMMITTED TO THE TOWER — FRUITLESS EF- 
FORTS OF QUEEN ANNE IN HIS BEHALF — BROUGHT 
BEFORE THE COURT OF THE KING'S BENCH — FORMER 
SENTENCE RENEWED AGAINST HIM — HIS EXECUTION 
AND BURIAL. 

T T AVING remained in Plymouth a few weeks, 
-*- -■- Sir Walter Raleigh started for London, in 
company with his wife and Captain Samuel King, 
of the Guiana fleet, a fast friend. They had pro- 
ceeded no farther than Ashburton, twenty miles 
from Plymouth, when they met Sir Lewis Stuke- 
ley, vice-admiral of Devonshire, a relative of Ra- 
leigh, who had the king's orders to arrest him, 
and to seize his ships. They turned back imme- 
diately to Plymouth, and Stukeley took possession 
of the Destiny. He left Sir Walter, with his wife 
and servant, at the house of Sir Christopher Harris, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 235 

while he busied himself about the affairs of 
the ship. 

There was now a chance for Raleigh to escape. 
Urged by his wife and friends, he engaged Cap- 
tain King to hire a vessel to take him to France, 
and one night two men came and took him in a 
boat to go to the vessel waiting out in the offing 
of the harbor. But just before they reached the 
barge Sir Walter had misgivings as to whether 
it was honorable for him to take this course, 
and he ordered the men to turn back. The lov- 
ing instincts of his wife were in this case wiser 
than the reasonings of her husband. Under the 
circumstances, he had a right to protect himself 
from the injustice and cruelty of the government, 
as it now began to be manifested by the treatment 
he and his captains were receiving. It is alto- 
gether likely, from the loose manner in which 
Stukeley guarded him, and from subsequent ma- 
neuvers of this officer, that it would not be disa- 
greeable to his employers to have his prisoner 
escape, and in that way deliver them from the 
dilemma of disposing of him, so as to satisfy the 



236 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

vindictiveness of the Spanish court. The state- 
ment that, after the death of Raleigh, was made 
by the king, called the Declaration, and drawn 
up at the instance of Lord Francis Bacon, to jus- 
tify the conduct of the king, was false in the 
assertion that Raleigh attempted to escape before 
the time of his arrest by Stukeley. He thought 
of no such thing before it appeared that his life 
was in danger. 

Soon a peremptory order to Stukeley came 
from the council to bring his prisoner to Lon- 
don. They were now accompanied by one 
Manourie, a French doctor, employed by Stuke- 
ley on pretense of Raleigh's health requiring 
medical advice, but really for the purpose of set- 
ting a spy over him. To him Raleigh and Cap- 
tain King talked freely about their affairs. ''I 
wish," said King, one day, "we were all safe at 
Paris." As they passed by his former estate at 
Sherbourne, Raleigh remarked to Manourie, "All 
this was mine, and it was taken from me unjustly." 
These and other talks were reported by Manourie 
to Stukeley. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 237 

Descending the hill at Wilton, toward Salis- 
bury, Raleigh dismounted and walked with the 
Frenchman, and opened to him a project which 
occupied his thoughts, to delay his journey at the 
latter place until the king, who was expected 
there in a "progress" over the country, should 
arrive. His object was to get time to put in 
writing a full explanation of the Guiana voyage, 
for his defense with the council, and for his vin- 
dication with posterity. The scheme suggested to 
the doctor was that he should give him some 
medicine which should make him ill for a time, 
and dispose Sir Lewis Stukeley to delay the jour- 
ney. "I shall thus," Manourie reported Raleigh's 
remarks, ''gain time to reach my friends and or- 
der my affairs, perhaps even to pacify his majesty. 
Otherwise, as soon as ever I come to London, 
they will have me in the Tower, and cut off 
my head. I can not escape it without counter- 
feiting sickness, which your vomits will effect 
without suspicion." This being arranged, as Sir 
Walter was proceeding to his chamber at Salis- 
bury, he stumbled in the corridor and fell against 



238 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

a pillar. The plot took; the prisoner was de- 
tained; Lady Raleigh, who was in the secret, 
and her attendants went on to her house in Lon- 
don; and Captain King was directed to hire a 
ship at London or Gravesend, that should be in 
readiness at Tilbury, on the Thames, for another 
attempt to escape to France. The next morning 
a servant came rushing into Stukeley's room, 
crying out: "My master is out of his wits. I 
have just found him in his shirt, on all fours, 
gnawing at the rushes on the boards!" 

The doctor was sent to him, and administered 
an emetic. He also besmeared his forehead, 
arms, and breast with an ointment which brought 
out on the skin purple pustules, like the leprosy. 
The Bishop of Ely, who was in town and heard 
of the case, sent the best of the physicians of 
Salisbury to his relief; and these physicians 
joined with Manourie in a certificate that it 
would not be safe for the prisoner to continue his 
journey for some days. Raleigh's object was 
gained; he .had time to write "The Apology for 
the Voyage to Guiana." In less than a week the 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 239 

king and his court came to Salisbury, and Stuke- 
ley received peremptory orders to take his pris- 
oner to London. 

On the 7th of August Raleigh arrived at his 
house in Broad Street, where, according to orders 
previously given, Stukeley was to keep guard 
over him instead of taking him to the Tower. 
Here he was visited by two emissaries of the 
French government, Le Clerc and De Novion, 
who made him an offer of a bark to carry him to 
Calais. This the government found out, and 
though they were satisfied that Raleigh was pas- 
sive in the matter, it complicated his case, and 
made it worse. Captain King came and informed 
him that a ketch had been provided, and was 
waiting at Tilbury under the command of one 
Hart, formerly a boatswain of Captain King. 
Stukeley was informed of all this; but he pre- 
tended to favor it, having been promised by Ra- 
leigh large rewards for his connivance. He ac- 
companied Raleigh, with his son, Captain King, 
and a page to the river's side, where two wher- 
ries waited to row the company to the ketch. 



240 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

They had scarcely got out on the river before 
they perceived that they were followed by a 
boat full of men. It was Herbert, a relation 
of Stukeley, who had been engaged by him 
for the purpose of apprehending Raleigh when 
he should have gone so far as to prove that 
he intended to escape to France. King and 
Raleigh expressed their suspicions; but Stuke- 
ley tried to allay them. Their talk alarmed 
the watermen, and they slackened their speed. 
The tide was getting unfavorable, and the ketch 
could not be reached before daylight, and it was 
clear that their pursuers would overtake them. 
In this predicament it was decided to turn back, 
and when they turned, the suspicious boat turned 
also, and followed them to Greenwich. Arrived 
there, Stukeley threw off his disguise, and arrested 
both Raleigh and King in the name of King 
James. "Sir Lewis," said Raleigh, "these ac- 
tions will not turn out to your credit." He was 
conducted to the Tower, where he parted with 
his faithful friend, who was allowed to go at liberty. 
Le Clerc, who was resident minister of France, 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 241 

was called to attend at a meeting of the privy 
council, and explain his visit to Sir Walter. He 
denied that he had made any overtures to Sir 
Walter Raleigh to assist him to escape to France, 
and persisted in denying it even after he was 
confronted with De Novion, who had confessed it 
all. It was decreed that Le Clerc should retire 
to his house, and forbear any further actions as a 
public minister. This proceeding excited great 
indignation at the French court. They denied 
that a man who had been appointed admiral of a 
fleet of fourteen ships could be pronounced "a, 
traitor," and they asserted that whatever Le Clerc 
had done, it was not to do King James any "dis- 
service," but only to draw service for him against 
the Spaniards. For their part of this mean tragedy, 
Manourie received twenty pounds, and Stukeley 
nine hundred and sixty-five pounds, three shill- 
ings, and sixpence — a poor fee for a treachery 
which gave him the name of Sir Judas Stukeley. 
The doom of Raleigh was now certain to every 
body. King James had him now wholly in his 

power, and it was only a question whether he 

16 



242 • Sir Walter Raleigh. 

should give him up to Spain to be hanged by 
them as a buccaneer, or to be brought to the 
block in England in execution of the sentence be- 
fore pronounced upon him. He was repeatedly 
brought before a committee of tlie privy coun- 
cil for examination. Attorney-general Yelverton 
charged him with having deceived the king by 
pretending to have discovered a gold mine which 
no person knew but himself, and yet he took no 
miners, nor tools for the business, and gave no 
orders to liis men to search for it. The solicitor- 
general charged him with abandoning his forces 
in Guiana, and with ''vile and dishonorable 
speeches full of contumely to the king" since his 
return to England. Sir Walter replied to all 
these allegations, and concluded by denying that 
the Spaniards had any rightful dominion over 
that region where they had built the new town of 
St. Thomas. Being charged with proposing to 
capture the Mexican fleet, he admitted that he 
talked about taking it, but it was ''in order to 
keep the fleet together." 

Not satisfied with what was gained by these ex- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 243 

aminations, the government appointed Sir Thomas 
Wilson to have the keeping and oversight of Sir 
Walter in tlie Tower, with a view to get from 
him statements and expressions which might tend 
his conviction of treason or piracy; but, though 
he promised that ''if he would discover what he 
knew, the king would forgive him and do him 
all favor," yet nothing was extracted from Ra- 
leigh to his disadvantage. He persisted in de- 
fending the whole enterprise as lawful and expe- 
dient, and emphatically denied the claims set up 
by Spain to the exclusive possession of Guiana. 

Lady Raleigh was made a prisoner in her own 
house, under the charge of a Mr. Wallaston, a 
London merchant, and her furniture and household 
goods were put under lock and key. The letters 
which passed between her and her husband were 
intercepted by Wilson to find accusations against 
him. A copy of one of Sir Walter's letters to his 
wife has been preserved, which shows that Wilson 
and his son Edward had played well the part of a 
spy. It concludes thus : 

'*I am sycke and weak. This honest gentle- 



244 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

man, Mr. Edward Wilson, is my keeper, and 
takes much payne with me. My swohie syde 
keeps me in perpetual pain and unrest. God 
comfort us. Yours, W. R." 

Lady Raleigh's reply to Sir Walter's letter was 
the following : 

''I am sory to hear amongst many discomforts 
that your health is so ill. 'Tis meerly sorrow 
and greaf that with wynde hath gathered into 
your syde. I hope your health and comforts will 
mend, and mend us for God. I am glad to hear 
you have the company and comfort of so good a 
keeper. I was somewhat dismayed at the first 
that you had no servant of your own left you; 
but I hear this night servants are very neces- 
sary. God requite his courtesyes, and God in. 
mercy look on us. Yours, 

''E. Raleigh." 

Raleigh wrote a letter to the king; also, to his 
favorite minister, the Marquis, afterward Duke, of 
Buckingham, to intercede in his behalf. He also 
appealed to the queen in the following lines, 
which were among the last verses with which he 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 245 

relieved the tedium and gloom of imprisonment. 
The queen never ceased to love and respect Ra- 
leigh, especially since the death of her first-born 
son, Prince Henry. Her own health was now 
failing, and she was in a mood to give earnest 
heed to the plea of one whose life was suspended 
by a hair. 

"Oh, had Truth power the guiltless could not fall, 
Malice win glory, or Revenge triumph ; 
But Truth alone can not encounter all. 

Mercy is fled to God which Mercy made ; 
Compassion dead; Faith turned to Policy. 
Friends know not those who sit in sorrow's shade. 

P'or what Ave sometimes were we are no more; 
Fortune hath changed the shape, and Destiny 
Defaced the very form we had before. 

All love, and all desert of former times. 
Malice hath covered from my sovereign's eyes. 
And largely laid abroad supposed crimes. 

But kings care not to mind what vassals were, 
But know them now as Envy hath described them: 
So can I look on no side from Despair. 

Cold walls, to you I speak ; but you are senseless. 
Celestial powers, you hear, but have determined, 
And shall determine, to my greatest happiness. 



246 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Then unto whom shall I unfold my wrongs, 
Cast down my tears, or hold up folded hands? 
To her to whom remorse doth most belong. 

To her who is the first, and may alone 

Be justly called the empress of the Britons. 

Who shall have mercy if a queen hath none ? 

Save those who would have died for your defense; 
Save him whose thoughts no treason ever tainted. 
For, lo ! destruction is not recompense. 

If I have sold my duty, sold my faith 
To strangers, which was only due to one. 
Nothing I should esteem so dear as death. 

But if both God and Time shall make you know 
That I, your humblest vassal, am opprest. 
Then cast your eyes on undeserved woe. 

That I and mine may never mourn the miss 
Of her we had ; but praise our living queen, 
"Who brings us equal, if not greater, bliss." 

Queen Anne immediately addressed a letter in 
a familiar and earnest style to Buckingham, a 
copy of which is preserved. 
''Anna R. : 

"My kind dogge, — If I have any power or 
credit with you, I pray you let me have a trial 
of it at this time in dealing sincerely and earnestly 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 247 

with the king that Sir WaUer Raleigh's life may 
not be called in question. 

"If you do it so that the success answer my 
expectation, assure yourself that I will take it 
extraordinarily kindly at your hands; and rest 
one that wishes you well, and desires you to con- 
tinew still, as you have been, a true servant of 
your master. 

'' To the Marquis of Buckingame." 

Buckingham's influence with the king in be- 
half of Raleigh was forestalled by his devotion to 
to the project of King James to wed Prince 
Charles to the Infanta of Spain, and Gondamar 
had impressed him with the necessity of putting 
Raleigh out of the way, if the favor of the King 
of Spain was to be secured. The probability is 
that he did nothing to gratify the queen in this 
matter, and save her friend. 

The king was informed that the Spaniards 
preferred not to have the prisoner delivered over 
to them for execution, but to have him executed 
in England. In this predicament, Lord Bacon 
was applied to for counsel as to tlie legal form of 



248 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

accomplishing this purpose. On consultation with 
his colleagues, the lord chancellor informed the king 
that a person already ''attainted of high treason 
can not be drawn in question judicially for any 
crime since committed;" that the king might give 
warrant for Raleigh's execution upon the former 
conviction. At the same time Bacon inconsist- 
ently suggested that Raleigh might be called 
before the council of state and the judges, on the 
charge of "acts of hostility, depredations, and 
abuse." In that case Raleigh could not plead 
that he had been pardoned. The king saw the 
contradiction in these advices of his sycophantic 
lord chancellor, and preferred the more direct 
course of executing the sentence which had been 
suspended since 1603. 

Accordingly, Raleigh was summoned before 
the court of the king's bench. It was a surprise 
to him, and he arose from his bed, where he had 
lain suffering from the ague, and, Avithout much 
attention to his personal appearance, hurried from 
the Tower, followed by one of his old servants. 
The servant observed his deshabille, and suggested 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 249 

to him that he had not combed his head. Sir 
Walter naively remarked, in the Devonshire dia- 
lect he was accustomed to use with common 
people: "Let them kem it that are to have it." 
He then added, smiling, "Dost thou know, 
Peter, of any plaster that will set a man's head 
on again, when it is off?" 

At the court the attorney-general produced the 
record of conviction, and demanded in the king's 
name that the sentence should be executed with- 
out delay. The chief-justice then asked the pris- 
oner if he had any thing to say. Raleigh, apol- 
gizing for the weakness of his voice on account 
of the ague, made reply : 

"All I can say, my lord, is this: The judg- 
ment I received to die so long since can not now, 
I hope, be strained ; for since it was his majesty's 
pleasure to grant me a commission to proceed on 
a voyage beyond the seas, wherein I had martial 
power on the life and death of others, so, under 
favor, I presume I stand discharged of that judg- 
ment. By that commission I gained new life and 
vigor; for he that hath power over the life of 



250 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

others must surely be master of his own. Under 
my commission I undertook a voyage, to do 
honor to my sovereign, and to enrich his king- 
dom with gold, of the ore whereof this hand 
hath found and taken in Guiana. But the enter- 
prise, notwithstanding my endeavors, hath no 
other issue than which was fatal to me — the loss 
of ray son, and the wasting of my whole estate." 

Tlie chief-justice, Montague, here interposed, 
saying : 

"Treason is a crime which must be pardoned 
by express words, not by implication." 

''If that be your lordship's opinion," said Ra- 
leigh, "I can only put myself upon the mercy 
of the king. His majesty, as well as all others 
who are here present, have been of opinion that 
in my former trial I received but hard measure. 
Had the king not been exasperated anew against 
me, certain I am that I might have lived a thou- 
sand years before he would have taken advantage 
of this conviction." 

The chief-justice remarked that he had a fair 
trial, and he should confess that his former judg- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 251 

ment should justly be executed. For fifteen years 
he had been dead in law, and might at any mo- 
ment have been cut off. " I know," continued 
the chief-justice, "you have been valiant and 
wise, and I doubt not but you retain both these 
virtues, for now you shall have occasion to use 
them. Your faith hath lieretofore been ques- 
tioned; but I am resolved that you are a good 
Christian, for your book, which is an admirable 
work, doth testify as much." Having added a 
few words more, expressing his sorrow for his 
fate, the chief-justice declared that "the execution 

was granted." 

«My lords," said Raleigh, "I desire this much 
favor, that I may not be cut off suddenly, but 
may have some time granted me before my exe- 
cution to settle my affairs and my mind more 
than they yet are. I have something to do m 
discharge of my conscience, and I have some- 
what to satisfy His Majesty in. I would beseech 
the favor of pen, ink, and paper. . . . I would 
beseech your lordships that, when I come to die, 
I may have leave to speak freely at my farewell. 



252 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

iVnd here I take God, before whom I shall shortly 
appear, to be my judge, that I was never disloyal 
to His Majesty, which I shall testify when I shall 
not fear the face of any king on earth. And I 
beseech you all to pray for me." 

The king was purposely absent from London, 
but tlie royal warrant for execution was now pro- 
duced, it having been prepared by anticipation. 
The sentence of hanging was changed to behead- 
ing; the time, the following morning. 

Raleigh was now taken to the gate-house of 
Westminster, one story of which was now used 
for a prison. Here he was visited by friends. 

As Raleigh passed from the Hall to the gate- 
house, he met an old friend, Sir Hugh Barton, 
and asked him : 

*'You will come to-morrow morning?" 

''Certainly," said Sir Hugh. 

*'But I do not know what you may do for a 
place. For my own part, I am sure of one. 
You must make Avhat shift you can." 

So cheerful was the condemned, but innocent, 
man, that his friends wondered at it, and one 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 253 

said to him, ''Do not carry it with too much 
bravery; your enemies will take exceptions, if 
you do." ''It is my last mirth in this world," he 
replied. "Do not grudge it to me. When I 
come to the sad parting, you will see me grave 
enough." To another friend he said, "The world 
is but a large prison, out of which some are daily 
selected for execution." 

The Dean of Westminster, Dr. Robert Towson, 
afterward Bishop of Salisbury, who was appointed 
to attend him, was impressed by his wonderful 
buoyancy of spirits and fearlessness of death, and 
cautioned him in respect to its source. "He was 
the most fearless of death ever known," wrote 
the dean, afterward, "and the most resolute and 
confident, yet with reverence and conscience." 

The saddest scene of all was the final inter- 
view, at midnight, of Raleigh with his beloved 
wife. It is best described by his eloquent biog- 
rapher, Edward Edwards: 

"She had buoyed herself with hope till almost 
the moment of the final meeting in the gate-house. 
But before she went, some friends broke to her 



2 54 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

the news, and told her that the lords of council, 
though they had refused intercession with the 
king for her husband's life, would empower her 
to bury him. It was then late on Thursday. It 
had yet to be told her that early on Friday morn- 
ing she would be a widow. But the clownish 
brutality native to James became an unmeant 
mercy. During that brief space of time Ra- 
leigh's thoughts were much bent upon the final 
vindication of his fame before the world. Into 
that channel he forced himself to turn his wife's 
thoughts also. And her love was stronger than 
her grief. He told her that he could not trust 
himself to talk about their dear little Carew. 
Thoughts concerning him must be left unspoken. 
Speech would but make the parting too hard for 
both of them. As they were conversing together 
about Lady Raleigh's task in the event of her 
husband's misgivings being realized by the forcible 
prevention of his intended address from the scaf- 
fold, the abbey clock told them it was already 
midnight. She knew that it would be an act of 
wifely love now to leave him alone, and she com- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 255 

pelled herself to go. Her last words were to 
tell him of the message about the disposal of his 
body. Then the passionate anguish would no 
longer let itself be restrained. But the loving 
purpose of departure was firmly kept. * It is 
well, dear Bess,' said Sir Walter with a parting 
smile, ' that thou mayst dispose of that dead 
which thou hadst not always the disposing of 
when alive.'" 

Left alone, Sir Walter spent his time in sup- 
plementing his last will and testament, and ap- 
pending to it the substance of his replies to the 
accusations of Feme, Stukeley, and Manourie. 

Early in the morning he received the com- 
munion from Dr. Towson, who testified that he 
seemed *'very cheerful and merry," and full of 
hope that he should satisfy every one of his inno- 
cence of the late charges by his final declaration 
on the scaffold. He took his breakfast as usual, 
and smoked his pipe, saying to all his attendants 
that death seemed to him nothing more than 
going on a journey. He dressed himself in his 
usual precise manner, and with special reference 



256 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

to the mode of his execution. A cup of wine 
was brought to him just before he left the gate- 
house. He was asked if it were to his liking. " I 
will answer you," said he, ''as did the fellow who 
drank of St. Giles's bowl as he went to Tyburn, 
'It is a good drink, if a man might but tarry 
by it.' " 

Attended by the dean of Westminster, he fol- 
lowed two sheriffs to the scaffold in the old palace 
yard near the Parliament House. He bowed to 
the crowd of persons present, among whom he 
saw several of his distinguished friends. Noticing 
a venerable, bald-headed old man standing near, 
he took from under his hat a night-cap of cut 
lace, and threw it to him, saying, "You need 
this, my friend, more than I do." 

He ascended the scaffold with a cheerful 
countenance, but with the air of one whose 
body was enfeebled by sickness, and out of 
breath by pushing through the crowd. In that 
crowd he was pleased to see numbers of the 
most distinguished commoners and noblemen of 
the realm standing or sitting on horseback. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 257 

Sentence being proclaimed, Sir Walter began 
his farewell speech, for which he had been so 
anxious to have the opportunity of delivering. 
He found it difficult to raise his voice to a pitch 
sufficient to be heard by the whole assembly, and 
particularly by his friends, the Earls of Arundel, 
Oxford, and Northampton, who stood in the bal- 
cony. ''I have had fits of ague for these two 
days," he said; "if, therefore, you perceive any 
weakness in me, ascribe it to my sickness rather 
than to myself. I am infinitely bound to God 
that he hath vouchsafed me to die in the sight of 
so noble an assembly, and not in darkness in 
that Tower, where I have suffered so much ad- 
versity and a long sickness." I thank God that 
my fever liath not taken me at this time, as I 
prayed to God it might not." 

He then devoted his attention to the noblemen 
in the balcony, and said that he was afraid he 
could not make himself lieard by them. Where- 
upon they said, "We will come down to you." 
He sat down while they were making tlieir way 

to him. They came directly to wiiere he sat, and 

17 



258 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

shook hands with him heartily and long. He 
then arose, and said : 

''There are two main points which, as I con- 
ceive, have hastened my coming thither, of which 
his majesty hath been informed against me. The 
first, that I had some practice with France. And 
the reason which his majesty had so to believe 
was, first, for that when I came to Plymouth, I 
had a desire in a small bark to have passed to 
Rochelle, and after, because the French agent 
came to my house here in London. But as ever 
I hope to see God or to have any benefit or com- 
fort by the passion of my Savior, I never had any 
practice with the French king or his embassador 
or agent; neither had I any intelligence from 
thence; neither did I ever see the French king's 
hand or seal, as some rejjort [asserting that], I 
had a commission from him at sea; neither, as I 
have a soul to save, did I know of the French 
agent's coming to my house till I saw him in my 
gallery. It is not now a time either to fear or 
flatter kings. I am now the subject of death, and 
the great God of heaven is my sovereign, before 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 259 

whose tribunal-seat I am shortly to appear. And, 
therefore, have a charitable conceit of me. To 
swear [falsely] is an offense; to swear falsely at 
any time is a great sin. So to call God to witness 
an untruth is a sin above measure sinful. But to 
do it at the hour of one's death, in the presence 
of Almighty God, before whom one is forthwith 
to appear, were the greatest madness and sin 
that could be possible. 

*'The other matter alleged against me," con- 
tinued Raleigh, "is that I should have spoken 
some disloyal, dishonest, and dishonorable words 
of the king. Mine accuser is a runagate French- 
man, who, having run over the face of the earth, 
hath no abiding-place. This fellow, because he 
had a merry wit, and some small skill in chemical 
medicine, I entertained rather for his taste than 
his judgment. He perjured himself at Salisbury, 
revealing that, the next day, the contrary of 
which he vowed to me the day before. But by 
the same protestation I have already made, and as 
I hope for my inheritance in heaven, I did never 
speak any disloyal, dishonorable, or dishonest 



26o Sir Walter Raleigh. 

words of the king. If I did, the Lord blot me 
out of the book of Hfe. Nay, I will protest fur- 
ther that I never thought such evil of him in my 
heart; and therefore it seemeth somewhat strange 
that such a base fellow should receive credit. 
Touching Sir Lewis Stukeley, he is my country- 
man and kinsman, and I have this morning taken 
the sacrament with Master Dean, and I have for- 
given both Stukeley and the Frenchman. Yet thus 
much, I think, I am bound in charity to speak 
of it, that others may take warning how they 
trust such men. Sir Lewis Stukeley hath testified 
before the lords that I told him my Lord Carew 
sent me word to get me gone, when I first landed. 
I protest, upon my salvation, neither did my Lord 
Carew send me any such word, neither did I tell 
Stukeley any such matter. He accused me, again, 
that I should tell him that my Lord Carew and 
my Lord Doncaster would meet me in France, 
which was never my speech nor my thought. 
Thirdly, he accused me that I showed him, in a 
letter, that I would give him ten thousand pounds 
for my escape. I never made him offer of ten 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 261 

thousand pounds, or one thousand pounds. If I 
had had half so much, I could have done better 
with it. I did show him in a letter that if he 
would go with me his debts should be paid when 
he was gone. For, as to my seeking escape, I 
can not deny it. I had advertisement that it 
would go hard with me. I desired to save my 
life. And as for that I did feign myself sick at 
Salisbury, and by art made my body full of blis- 
ters, to put off the time of coming before the 
council, I hope it was no sin. The prophet 
David, a man after God's own heart, did feign 
himself mad, and let the spittle fall down on his 
beard. I find not that recorded as a fault in 
David, and I hope God will never lay it to my 
charge. I hoped by delay to gain time for ob- 
taining my pardon. 

'* But Sir Lewis Stukeley did me a further 
injury, which I am very sensible of, howsoever it 
seem not to concern myself. In my going up to 
London, we lodged at Sir Edward Parham's 
house. He is an ancient friend and follower of 
mine, whose lady is my cousin-german. There 



262 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Stukeley made it to be suggested unto me, and 
himself told me, he thought I had some poison 
given me. I know it grieves the gentleman there 
should be such a conceit held. And as for the 
cook who was suspected, having been once my 
servant, I know he would go a thousand miles to 
do me good. 

**For my going to Guiana, many thought I 
never intended it, but intended to gain my lib- 
erty, — which I would I had been so wise as to 
have kept. But, as I shall answer it before the 
same God before whom I am shortly to appear, I 
endeavored, and I hoped, to have enriched the 
king, myself, and my partners. But I was un- 
done by Keymis, a willful fellow, who, seeing my 
son slain, and myself unpardoned, would not 
open the mine, and killed himself. 

"It was also told the king that I was brought 
by force to England, and that I did not intend to 
come back again. I protest that when the voyage 
succeeded not, and that I resolved to come home, 
my company mutinied against me. They fortified 
the gun-room against me, and kept me within my 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 263 

own cabin; and would not be satisfied except I 
would take a corporal oath not to bring them 
into England until I had gotten the pardons of 
four of them, — there being four men unpardoned. 
So I took that oath. And we came into Ireland, 
where they would have landed in the north parts. 
But I would not, because tliere the inhabitants 
were all Redshanks. So we came to the South, 
hoping from thence to write to his majesty for 
their pardons. In the mean time I offered to 
send them to places in Devon or Cornwall, to lie 
safe till they had been pardoned. 

" I am glad that my Lord of Arundel is here; 
for, when I came down to my ship, his lordship 
and divers others were with me. At the parting 
salutation, his lordship took me aside, and desired 
me freely and faithfully to resolve to him one re- 
quest, which was, wli ether I made a good voyage 
or bad, yet I should return again into England. 
I made you," turning to Lord Arundel, who was 
on the scaffold, "a promise, and gave you my 
faith, that I would." 

Lord Arundel responded: ''And so you did. 



264 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

It is true that they were were the last words I 
spake unto you." 

After a few desultory remarks on various un- 
important matters, Sir Walter concluded : 

"I will yet borrow a little time of Master 
Sheriffs, to speak of one thing more. It doth 
make my heart bleed to hear such an imputation 
laid upon me. It was said that I was a perse- 
cutor of my Lord of Essex, and that I stood in a 
window over against him when he suffered, and 
puffed out tobacco in disdain of him. I take my 
God to witness that my eyes shed tears for him 
when he died. And, as I hope to look in the 
face of God hereafter, my Lord of Essex did not 
see my face when he suffered. I was far off in 
the Armory when I saw him, but he saw not me. 
And now my soul hath been many times grieved 
that I was not near with him when he died, be- 
cause I have understood that, he asked for me at 
his death, to be reconciled to me. I confess I 
was of a contrary faction. But I knew that my 
Lord of Essex was a noble gentleman, and that 
it would be worse with me when he was gone; 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 265 

for tliose that did set me up against him did after- 
ward set themselves against me." 

He closed with an earnest prayer for the 
divine mercy and blessing. 

He then asked the people present to pray 
for him : 

'•'And now I entreat you all to join with me 
in prayer to the Great God of Heaven, whom I 
have grievously offended. I have many, many 
sins for which to beseech God's pardon. Of a 
long time my course was a course of vanity. I 
have been a seafaring man, a soldier, and a 
courtier, and the temptations of the least of 
these overthrow a good mind and a good man. 
I die in the faith as professed by the Church of 
England. I hope to be saved and have my sins 
washed away by the precious blood and merits 
of our Savior, Christ.'* 

Proclamation was now made for all persons to 
leave the scaffold. Sir Walter then threw off his 
cloak. His hat and some money he gave to his 
attendants. He then bade farewell to his friends 
around him. He asked Lord Arundel to entreat 



266 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

the king to allow no calumnious publications 
against his character when he was gone. 

**I have a long journey to go," he said, "and 
must therefore speedily take my leave." Taking 
off his gown and doublet, he presented himself as 
ready to the executioner. 

He then asked to see the ax. The execu- 
tioner, bewildered, hesitated, until he asked the 
second time. He felt the blade to test its sharp- 
ness, and kissed it, saying, "This gives me no 
fear. It is a sharp and fair medicine to cure me 
of all my diseases." He then said, "When I 
stretch forth my hands, dispatch me." 

He then saluted the assembly around him, and 
said, "Give me your prayers." He then kneeled 
for the last prayer. 

The executioner asked which way he would 
have his head directed. He answered, "If the 
heart be riglit, it were no matter which way the 
head was laid." The executioner turned his face 
to the east as he laid his head upon the block, 
and threw over his body his cloak. In a moment 
the hand was raised, as a signal for the stroke. 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 267 

But the man trembled and hesitated. "What 
dost thou fear?" cried Sir Walter. ''Strike, man, 
strike." The ax fell twice, and the head dropped 
upon the stage, and all was over. 

The head was lifted, shown to the crowd, and 
then deposited in a red leather bag. That and 
the body, enveloped in Sir Walter's cloak, were 
conveyed in a coach to the house of Lady Ra- 
leigh. By her the head was embalmed, and kept 
in a case while she lived, and then left to her 
son Carew, who at his death requested that it 
should be buried in the same grave with himself. 

The body was interred in the chancel of St. 
Margaret's Church in Westminster. There now 
the traveler will read on a tablet of brass, re- 
placing in 1845 01^^ of wood, this inscription 
probably copied from the original : 

'* Within the chancel of this church was interred 
the body of the great Sir Walter Ralkigh, 
on the day he was beheaded in Old Palace 
Yard, Westminster, October 29, 1618. 
Reader, should you reflect on his errors, remem- 
ber his many virtues, and that he was a 
mortal." 



268 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

In his Bible at the gate-house these truthful 
and touching lines were found: 

"Even such is time that taices on trust 
Oux" youth, our joys, our all we have, 
And pays us but with age and dust; 
Who in the dark and silent grave, 
When we have wandered all our ways. 
Shuts ujD the story of our days ! 
But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust." 

The popular sympathy witli Raleigh was mani- 
fested by the promiscuous crowd that came to the 
execution. In that assembly were Sir John Eliot 
and John Hampden, whose resistance to the ar- 
bitrary acts of Charles I has made them immor- 
tal. From that hour the writings of Raleigh were 
text-books to the English patriots, who sought to 
limit tlie prerogatives of the crown, and to en- 
large the liberties of the subject. 

The sad story of Raleigh's fate was the topic 
of conversation in every circle in England, and 
in every court in Europe, At St. Paul's Church, 
where noblemen, merchants, and professional men 
were wont to congregate twice a day for conver- 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 269 

sation and business communication, a leading 
merchant of London, Mr. Edward Weimark, 
speaking of the Secretary of State, Sir Robert 
Naunton, said he wished that Sir Walter Raleigh's 
head were on his shoulders. This remark was 
reported to the privy council, and Weimark was 
called to account for it. He admitted the re- 
mark, but said it only meant that two heads 
were better than one. Not long after subscrip- 
tions were taken at the council chamber for St. 
Paul's Cathedral, and Weimark subscribed one 
hundred pounds; but on the Secretary's remark- 
ing significantly that two hundred were better 
than one, he thought it prudent for him to double 
his subscription. 

The enemies of Raleigh were obnoxious to the 
popular dislike. Manourie was treated with con- 
tempt, and Sir Lewis Stukeley was repelled from 
respectable society. One day his office as vice- 
admiral of Devon brought him to the house of 
Lord Charles Howard. He was met by the earl 
with an outburst of indignation. '' Barest thou 
to come into my presence, thou base fellow, who 



270 Sir Walter Raleigh. 

art reputed the common scorn and contempt of all 
men? Were it not in my own house, I would 
cudgel thee with my staff for presuming to speak 
to me." Stukeley complained to the king of this 
treatment. "What should I do with him?" said 
James. ''Hang him? On my sawle, mon, if I 
hang all that spoke ill of thee, all the trees in 
the island were too few." Not a year had 
elapsed before Stukeley was detected in debas- 
ing the king's coin in the Whitehall Palace, and 
was condemned to be hung. The sentence was 
commuted for confiscation of most his possessions. 
He then took refuge at his country-seat in Affton; 
but being every-where scorned by poor and rich, 
his life was a burden, and he fled to the little 
island of Lundy, sixteen miles off the coast of 
Devon, and there, in less than two years, in 
the old ruined "Moresco Castle," he died, a 
wretched, heart-broken man. 

The king found it necessary by the prosti- 
tuted but plausible pen of Bacon to publish an 
apology for his treatment of Raleigh, entitled, 
'*A Declaration of the Demeanor and Carriage 



Pioneer of American Colonization. 271 

of Sir Walter Raleigh," in which are some pal- 
pable contradictions and perversions of the facts 
in the case. The curse of God rested upon that 
mean and cowardly king, and upon his family, 
culminating in the beheading of Charles I, and 
the final extinction of the royal house of the 
Stuarts. 

Lady Raleigh survived her noble husband 
twenty-nine years. Her son Carew, who was 
thirteen years of age at his father's death, vindi- 
cated the characier of his father in a treatise, en- 
titled, '•^ Brief Relations of Sir Walter RaleigKs 
Troubles^ He was highly educated, and pos- 
sessed of more than ordinary literary genius. He 
failed to recover his father's forfeited estate of 
Sherbourne, but became possessed of an ample 
fortune by marriage. At his death he requested 
to be buried in his father's grave. 



THE end. 



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